Alchemilla
A prickly, self-healing native herb from nearly every region — a bench buffer that punishes attackers with thorns.
Lady's-Mantle is a low Perennial herb that fights as a defensive buffer with a bite: cheap attacks, respectable damage for a herb, and thorns that make hitting it costly. It is native across a very wide range — Africa, East Asia, Europe, both eastern and western North America, Oceania, South America, and South Asia — and has no invasive card, so the arena only ever fields it in its native, bench-support role. It is a dependable, unspectacular support plant.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 31 damage; it also leaves a lingering poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Chronosequence, arrives at level 25: Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. The advanced attack, Deep-Seated Grudge, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (39 damage) and is a clean, harder hit. Most of your plants sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
It keeps two always-on traits. Thorns arrives at full strength on the level 10 riser and, from then on, damages any attacker that strikes it in melee — a steady recoil that rewards it for soaking hits. Resprout comes in later, on the level 68 riser, letting it survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health; that one triggers only about 60% of the time, so it is a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
It carries the thorns keyword, so attackers take recoil every time they hit it — the core of its defensive game. It is non-toxic otherwise: no contact poison, no poison rider baked into the plant. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment) stacks neatly with thorns to make it a wall that hurts to attack.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP with 30 ATK — strong for a herb, since it has no invasive form to compare against. DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so its durability comes from HP and thorns, not armor. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on a quick initiative (38) that leads, but from turn 2 on its slower SPD (29) gets out-paced, so it opens fast and then cruises behind. Retreat costs 14 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, it climbs to 190 HP and 56 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 4 — as a soft herb it banks bulk in health, never armor, and leans on thorns for its staying power. Retreat rises to 28 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb it sits 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 it as a native bench buffer that shields a fragile hitter while punishing anything that trades into it — the HP cushion, overshield, and thorns together make it annoying to remove. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a leveling project rather than a coin earner. It opens as a quick skirmisher and settles into its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 21; it is always stronger at higher levels in raw stats, so 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.