Trees and the Astral Environment of Plants by Rudolf Steiner with Journaling Prompts
The plant grows out of the ground. The root grows out of the seed. Let us take a tree: the stem grows up. This growth is very remarkable. This stem is really only formed because it lets sap mount from the earth and so the stem comes hard.
“This excerpt is presented in its original form to preserve the depth and nuance of Rudolf Steiner’s language. While some phrasing may differ from modern conventions, its meaning and essence remain intact.”
What happens, in reality? The earthy, the solid, becomes fluid. And we have an earthly-fluid substance mounting there. Then the fluid evaporates and the solid remains behind: that is the wood.
You see this sap which mounts up in the tree—let us call it wood sap—is not created there but is already contained everywhere in the earth, so that the earth in this respect is really a great living being. This sap which mounts in the tree is really present in the whole earth, only in the earth it is something special. It becomes in the tree what we see there. In the earth it is in fact the sap which actually gives it life. For the earth is really a living being; and that which mounts in the tree is present in the whole earth and through it the earth lives. In the tree it loses its life-giving quality. It becomes merely a chemical; it has only chemical qualities.
Through the sap the plant is connected with the earth; the life-sap connects the plant with what circulates round the earth—with the airy-moist circumference of the earth. But the cambium brings the plant into connection with the stars, with what is above, and in such a way that within this cambium the form of the next plant develops. This passes over to the seeds and in this way the next plant is born, so that the stars indirectly through the cambium create the next plant.
It is really wonderful—a seed, a humble, modest little seed, could only come into existence because the cambium imitates the whole plant; and this form which arises there in the cambium—a new plant form—this carries the power to the seed to develop through the forces of the earth into a new plant.
So it is with trees, and so too with the ordinary plants. When the rootlet is in the earth, the sprout shoots upwards. But it does not separate off the solid matter, does not make wood; it remains like a cabbage stalk. The leaves come out directly on the circumference in spirals, the cambium is formed directly in the interior, and the cambium takes everything back to the earth with it. In the annual plants the whole process occurs much more quickly. In the tree, only the hard parts are separated out and not everything is destroyed. The same process occurs in ordinary plants, too, but is not carried so are as in trees.
As for the cambium, there the whole plant is sketched out from the stars. The wood sap rises and dies, then life again arises; and now comes the influence of the stars, so that from the thick, sticky cambium the new plant is sketched out. In the cambium one has a sketch, a sculptural activity. The stars model in it the complete plant form from the whole of the universe. So you see, we come from life to the spirit. What is modelled there is modelled from out of the cosmic spirit. The earth first gives up her life to the plant, the plant dies, the air environment along with its light once more gives it life, and the cosmic spirit implants the new plant form. This is preserved in the seed and grows again in the same way.
So that one sees in the growing plant how the plant world rises out of the earth, through death, to the living spirit.
To understand a tree, we must say: here is the thick tree-trunk (and in a sense the boughs and branches still belong to it). The real plant grows out of it. Leaves, flowers and fruit grow out of it; they are the real plant—rooted in the trunk and branches of the tree, as the herbaceous plants and cereals are rooted in the earth.
The plant which grows on the tree has lost its root. Relatively speaking, it is seen separated from its root—only it is united with it, as it were in a more etheric way. What I have sketched is actually there in the tree, as the cambium layer. That is how we must regard the roots of these plants that grow out of the tree; they are replaced by the cambium. Although the cambium does not look like roots, it is the living, growing layer, constantly forming new cells, so that the plant life of the tree grows out of it, just as the life of a herbaceous plant grows up above out of the root below.
The tree with its cambium or formative layer is actually an extension of the earth realm; it has grown outwards into the airy regions. And having thus grown outwards, into air, it needs more inwardness, more intensity of life, than the earth otherwise has, than it has where the ordinary root is in it. Now we begin to understand the tree. In the first place, we understand it as a strange entity whose function is to separate the plants that grow upon it—stem, blossom, fruit—from their roots, uniting them only through the spirit, that is, through the etheric. We must learn to look with macrocosmic intelligence into the mysteries of growth. But it goes still further. For I now ask you to observe what happens through the fact that a tree comes into being. It is as follows.
What grows up there on the tree has a different plant nature in the air and outer warmth than that which grows in air and warmth immediately on the soil, unfolding the herbaceous plant that springs out of the earth directly. It is a different plant world for it is far more intimately related to the surrounding astrality. Down here, the astrality in the air and warmth is expelled, so that the air and warmth may become mineral for the sake of the human being and animal. Look at a plant growing directly out of the soil.
True, it is surrounded, enshrouded in an astral cloud. Up there, however, round about the tree, the astrality is far denser. Our trees are gatherings of astral substance; quite clearly, they are gatherers of astral substance.
For a great distance around, the tree make the spiritual atmosphere inherently richer in astrality. The tree has a certain inner vitality or ethericity; it has certain intensity of life. Now the cambium damps down this life a little more, so that it becomes slightly more mineral. While up above a rich astrality arises all around the tree, the cambium works in such a way that inside the ethericity is poorer.
Within the tree arises poverty of etheric substance as compared to the plant. And as the cambium engenders a relative poverty of etheric substance in the tree, the root in its turn will be influenced. The roots of the tree become mineral—far more so than the roots of herbaceous plants. And the root, being more mineral, deprives the earthly soil of some of its ethericity. This makes the earthly soil rather more dead in the environment of the tree than it would be in the environment of a herbaceous plant.
What becomes very evident in the tree is present in a more delicate way throughout the whole plant world. In every plant there is a tendency to become treelike. In every plant, the root with its environment strives to let go the etheric substance, while that which grows upwards tends to draw in the astral more densely.
I have told you on several occasions that the plant form consists of the physical body and the etheric body belonging to it but that in its upward growth it extends its blossoms into the surrounding astrality, when we survey a bed of plants we find astrality spread out over the plants, astrality belonging to the plants. The single plant does not have an astral body; but the general astrality spread out over the surface of the earth, as the air is spread out physically, is nevertheless differentiated. What alights, shall we say on a particular lily blossom out of the astral body of the earth has a different appearance from that which descends on a clover blossom. Here the general astrality differentiates itself.
This relationship between the whole terrestrial astrality and the carpet of plant life spread out over the earth also exists inwardly between the human astral body and its organs. In this sense, too, man is wholly a microcosm.
The relationship that exists between the general astrality of the earth and the entire plant life covering the earth is generally speaking a healthy one, and when one discovers the relations between the single plants and the human organs it will become possible to stimulate and to cure the organs from within by administering substances from the relevant plants. For when these plants substances are introduced into the human organism, the plant’s relationship to the general astrality of the earth is brought in as well.
If this relationship becomes blunted in the human organism, it receives a new stimulus in the human astral body as well when one applies the forces of the appropriate plant. Here arises the possibility of establishing a plant system which corresponds to the human organism and which will still constitute a rational system of certain remedies for specific organic diseases.
~ Excerpt from ‘Plants and the Living Earth,' Chapter 3 of Agriculture: An Introductory Reader by Rudolf Steiner. Original texts compiled, with introduction, commentary, and notes by Richard Thornton Smith.
Note: This excerpt is from Rudolf Steiner's original text and does not include commentary or notes from the editor.
Another Note on Language:
"Astrality," as used by Rudolf Steiner, refers to the soul’s life of feelings, desires, and sensations — the bridge between our physical existence and spiritual experience. Though less common today, it remains a key concept in understanding his teachings.
Steiner’s book Theosophy(1904) offers a more detailed understanding of the astral body and human nature for those who wish to explore further.
Spirit Nourished Earth created the image in this post in collaboration with DALL·E 3. To hang this art on your wall, please visit our Nature Inspired AI in Spiritual Decor & More
Journal Prompts for Self-Reflection
Roots and Renewal
The roots of a tree anchor it through seasons of change. What roots — practices, relationships, or beliefs — help ground you when life feels uncertain?
The Spirit in Growth
Growth often begins unseen, deep within. What invisible growth is happening in you now, even if it has not yet surfaced?
Whispers of the Stars
The stars shape the plant’s future silently through the cambium. What quiet, unseen influences shape your path — and how might you listen more closely?
Cycles of Death and Renewal
Plants die back to renew themselves with greater strength. Is something in your life asking to be released so that something new can be born?
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