Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/1405/en

Stinging nettles spread by means of stolons (*rhizomes*) into colonies reaching one to two metres in height. The runner-shoots are yellowish in colour, running just below — less often above — the surface of the ground, and send from their nodes tough, likewise yellowish root-strands down into the depth, from which a whitish fine root-system then threads through the living topsoil, richly branched. From the *rhizome* nodes, two small plants grow upward at each point. They press with a decided uprighting force and in strictly harmonious, geometrical order toward the light. Island-like, the shoots gather and close themselves off outwardly into a defensive sheath, enclosing within the densely shading foliage an interior space. The stinging nettle has an "inward working" of its own, which concentrates itself in this inner space, continues into the root zone, and in so doing harmonises the disordered life of the soil and transforms it into stable humus.