Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/1334/en

Stinging nettles grow by means of stem runners (rhizomes) into colonies one to two metres tall. The runner shoots are yellowish in colour, run shallowly below — more rarely above — the soil surface and send from their nodes tough, likewise yellowish root-strands down into the depth, from which a whitish, richly branched fine root-system threads through the living topsoil. From each rhizome node two small shoots grow upward. They strive upward with resolute uprighting force and strictly harmonious, geometric order. Island-like, the shoots gather together and set themselves off outwardly in a defensive sheath that — within the deeply shading foliage — encloses an interior. The stinging nettle has an «Innenwirkung» ("inward working") that concentrates itself in this inner space, continues down into the root zone, and so harmonises the disordered life of the soil and transforms it into enduring, fertile stable humus.