Abelmoschus manihot
Sunset hibiscus (Abelmoschus manihot) is a competitor shrub in Supplant — a native buffer and invasive attacker whose game role is set out below.
Aibika (sunset muskmallow) is a leafy shrub eaten as a vegetable across the Pacific and Asia. In battle it is a Shrub — a Competitor on the succession chart. Native across East Asia, Oceania and South Asia, it plays as a defensive buffer; where it has spread as an invasive into Africa and South America, it turns attacker.
Its starter attack, Snarl, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 29 damage as a native and 32 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Shrubland Sere, unlocks at Lv 25: Settles the slope: heal 35%, and the foe withers. The advanced attack, Thorn in the Side (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 32 native and 34 invasive.
Sunset hibiscus holds two always-on traits. Marcescence (level 10) adds +4 DEF at half HP or below. Sapromyophily (level 68) turns its enormous pale flowers into a decoy — the engine's single-victim picks resolve onto this card instead of an ally. See Abilities.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment suits it, adding flat DEF on top of its already-firm armour; feeding it Nitrogen (N), the nutrient matching its edible leaf, pays bonus coins. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 24 ATK as a native, or 89 HP and 31 ATK as an invasive, with 11 DEF. As a native it adds a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it trades that for the higher attack ceiling and pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. On defence, its DEF sits in the firmer shrub band. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 51 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 52 — making it steady in both the opening and the sustained phases of a fight. Retreating it costs 12 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190 and its DEF firms to 21, with attack at 43. Retreat rises to 23 Sun, and its inverted tempo has fallen to a sliver — the speed edge it had young is gone. It ages into a durable mid-line plant rather than a true wall.
On the succession chart a Shrub is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A serviceable invasive attacker with a below-half DEF boost from level 10 and a Sapromyophily taunt from level 68 — both risers pay out. Its real bonus is leaf-edibility for coins. Because its edible part (leaf) is recorded, feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 34 (a little later as an invasive, around Lv 36), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.