L is for Lushness

Not the ‘harlot’ type of a girl who would hang around salubrious establishments in the 1940’s looking for their next heart to break either.  Lush as in the word that describes copious amounts of thick vegetation – green, dense, abundant, verdant and luxurious.  With a big degree in variation between the wettest and the driest locations in New Zealand and humans unquenchable craving  to clear yet more forests,  the word cannot be used to describe every square inch of the country.  Lush can however be used linguistically correct to still describe the majority of this land, from its lush green pastures to its lush mountain slopes to its lush coastal forests.  You get the picture.  Thanks to a rainfall that falls relatively evenly over the cycle of the seasons, rich soils signifying a volcanic history as well as vast alluvial flood zones, New Zealand was cloaked in this lushness for most of its existence until the arrival of mankind.  What remains however, is mosaic of greens, forever lovely and lush.