Cardamine trifolia
Trefoil Cress (Cardamine trifolia) is a perennial herb that plays a native buffer, with no introduced range to make it an attacker.
Trefoil Cress is a perennial herb — a soft, fast plant that hardens its roots over a fight. It is native to Europe and has no introduced range, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker scenario for it.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Bitter Sap (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 28 as a native: Bitter compounds poison the foe. Its once-per-battle ability, Alkaloid Reservoir (level 25, free), is pure utility: Empties a season of alkaloids into the foe — saturating Poison. Its advanced attack, Crown Division (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 38 native: Splits the crown and strikes from both halves.
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, Basal Rosette gives a small flat DEF bonus — the ground-hugging rosette shrugs off a little of every blow, the way it shrugs off grazing and mowing. From level 68, Contractile Roots ramps its DEF up over the course of a fight, adding a point each checkup up to a cap as the roots pull the crown deeper.
On the field it draws on field gear to shore up its weaknesses. With little natural armor it leans on amendments that add DEF or on healing gear to offset its fragility.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 84 health and 20 attack as a native, with 4 DEF. That is thin armor, so it takes close to full damage from any real attacker; its defense is its health pool and its tricks, not its DEF. Its retreat costs 12 Sun. On tempo it opens at 24 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 48 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 (84 versus 73 as an invader), and while benched it projects a green overshield bar onto your active plant, sized by how threatened it is.
Grown to level 100, its health swells to 147 and its attack to 36, but its armor stays low (8 DEF) — it never becomes a wall, just a bigger version of the same soft plant. Retreat rises to 24 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, Trefoil Cress's category (perennial herb) 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.
A lightweight card with a small invasive edge and a DEF that ramps as the fight runs. Its low health and armor keep it modest; its main draw is the edible leaf for coins and family-tree collection. Off the battlefield it earns money: it has an edible leaf, so feeding it Nitrogen 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 31, 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.