> I really don't know how a waterless place got to mean what it does (a forest).
If we place ourselves back in history to a time where the main signification of "nature" was "the enemy of man", the menacing surroundings, I think we can understand this. Jungle was simply the place where you could not go. It mattered little if this was because of lack of water or impenetrable and useless brush. Nowadays of course, we want to protect the jungle from becoming arid wasteland, and long for the lost paradise called "nature". Words arise from OUR INTERACTION, as humans, with the outside world.