Acaulimalva crenata
A native-only South American herb that opens fast but fades, leaning on a coin-flip survival trait and a self-heal to stall.
Acaulimalva crenata is a low Perennial herb that fights as a fragile staller: it leads early, loses the tempo race later, and survives more by clinging on than by hitting hard. It is native to South America and has no invasive card in the game, so it only ever plays as a native buffer for your bench — do not expect an attacker version. It is a weak, collectible-grade card whose main job is to buy time beside a stronger partner.
Its starter attack, Stolon Reach, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, comes in at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. It mends the plant to help it outlast an exchange. The advanced attack, Rhizome Lock, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (18 native), another straightforward strike. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn; see Moves.
Acaulimalva keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Acaulimalva carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing extra punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider. As a native-only card, general defensive field gear such as a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment best supports its stalling role.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP as a native (the invasive figure 89 never applies, since no invasive card exists). ATK is 15 and native-only, so there is no attacker column to compare against. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is a quick start and a slower cruise: turn 1 runs on its initiative (52) and later turns on its lower SPD (51), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced in a long fight. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, Acaulimalva swells to 190 HP native (invasive 165 unused) and 25 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 23 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature specimen acts last against nearly anything young. Maturing buys HP and a stronger Resprout, but never toughness.
As a perennial herb, Acaulimalva is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Acaulimalva purely as a native buffer: the HP cushion, the bench overshield, the once-per-battle heal and the coin-flip Resprout let it soak a couple of turns while a real attacker sets up behind it. Its own damage is low, so do not rely on it to finish anyone. Its clearest value is economic: it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 39, then what little bulk it has takes over — there is no reason to hold it back.
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.