Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/928/en

Rudolf Steiner describes the nitrogen-fixing capacity of the legumes as a process of "inhalation", while all other plants "stand close to exhalation". The nitrogen inhalation of the legumes is a process comparable to "what happens on our epithelial cells [of the lung; insertion by the author]". The symbiosis with the Rhizobia is endogenous; they form a physiological unity with the mother legume. They migrate from the soil into the still-young plant and multiply there, forming the root nodules. They are therefore secondarily a gift of the earth to the legume plant — through which the legume is placed in a position to enliven the inorganically dead element of atmospheric nitrogen (N₂), and thereby to bind the soul-astral intimately into the life-activity, the soul-astral whose bearer nitrogen is. The forms of appearance of the legumes bear witness, in many characteristics right down into the shaping of the blossom, to an inwardness woven into the life processes to a higher degree than is the case with other flowering plants.