Broussonetia papyrifera
Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) is a broadleaf tree that buffers your team where it is native and attacks where it has become invasive.
Paper Mulberry is a broadleaf tree that is a wall at home and a hard-hitting invader abroad — one of the more aggressive trees in this batch. It is native to East Asia and South Asia, where it plays a defensive buffer, and has become invasive in Africa, Europe, eastern North America, Oceania, and South America, where it fights as an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Deathshadow (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 26 as a native or 30 as an invader: Casts a shade nothing recovers in — the foe can't heal. Its once-per-battle ability, Nurse Log (level 25, free), is pure utility: The fallen feed the next: heal 25%, even the bench, and call back the lost. Its advanced attack, Out on a Limb (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 38 native or 48 invasive: Two swings from the same limb.
These are the always-on traits this card actually keeps, and the level each one arrives at (a plant draws at most one trait per growth stage). From level 10, Tannin Load turns its bark against attackers: any plant that lands a melee hit on it is Withered, losing attack power (the oak's souring tannins). It fires on the striker every damaging hit. From level 68, Heartwood Core adds a flat block of DEF that grows with the tree's level, so the older the trunk the harder it is to dent.
On the field it draws on field gear to shore up its weaknesses. As a tree it takes best to a Calcium/Magnesium amendment that stacks flat DEF onto an already-hard trunk, and to Mulch for staying power. Native and invasive copies want different gear — the native buffer favors defensive and healing picks, the invader favors damage and speed.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 103 health and 22 attack as a native, with 19 DEF. That is a wall-class defense for a plant this size — armor is diminishing rather than flat, so a big attacker still gets through, but a small one is turned away. Its retreat costs 16 Sun. On tempo it opens at 19 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 34 speed (which orders every turn after). It is slow off the mark but relentless afterward — it often cedes the opening hit, then out-paces the foe from turn 2. As a native it carries a 15% health cushion (103 versus 89 as an invader), and while benched it projects a green overshield bar onto your active plant, sized by how threatened it is. As an invader its attack identity is built from how widely it has spread, so its 35 attack outstrips its native 22; it pays for that aggression with self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
Grown to level 100, this card hardens into a wall: its DEF climbs to 41 and its health to 190, with attack reaching 40. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as the older plant grows more rooted, and its once-quick tempo has sunk to a sliver — it goes late in turn order now. Maturing buys it raw bulk and hitting power; it costs it the speed edge it had as a seedling.
In the succession type chart, Paper Mulberry's category (broadleaf tree) belongs to the Competitor group. Ruderal, Competitor, and Specialist form a wheel: Competitor hits Ruderal plants (annual-forbs, grasses, aquatic plants, and bulbs) for 1.5× damage, and takes 1.5× from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, and epiphytes), resisting each the other way at about two-thirds. The off-wheel Weird categories are neutral both ways.
This is a strong card in both roles: a tanky buffer where it is native, and a heavy attacker across most of the world where it has naturalized. The wide introduced range gives it a large invasive attack step, so leaning into the attacker role pays off. Off the battlefield it earns money: it has an edible fruit, so feeding it Phosphorus fertilizer pays 1.25× coins (any other nutrient banks 1.25× experience instead). On the power curves below, it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 14 as a native (level 15 as an invader), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its fading speed — a shift in which edge dominates, not a sign it is weaker when grown.
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.