Celtis tenuifolia
A native-only Broadleaf tree card that is very well armoured, very slow, and built to support a native bench rather than fight.
Dwarf Hackberry is a Broadleaf tree card, native to eastern North America and listed as invasive nowhere, making it native-only. It always plays the buffer role: a +15% health cushion and a bench overshield projected onto your active plant. There is no attacker version. See nativity and categories.
The starter attack, Acorn Drop, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for 27. Drops mast — also nicks the bench.
The free once-per-battle ability, Old-Growth Reaction, unlocks at level 25 and costs no Sun. Centuries of shade — the foe stalls and withers.
The advanced attack, Lignin Lockdown, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and lands for 24. Goes woody and immovable — the foe stalls and wilts. It hits for less than the starter at three times the cost, so the starter remains this card's damage. See moves.
Buttress Roots arrives on the first riser at level 10: an immunity to Bind rather than an armour bonus. This card cannot be pinned, which matters a great deal here because it is slow enough that an opponent would very much like to pin it.
Network stacks on at level 68 and amplifies the buffs your native bench is projecting. It is a support trait, and it rewards building a deliberately native bench rather than a mixed one.
The species record lists no toxicity and no trait keywords, so no poison rider applies. For field gear, the gap is tempo, not durability. Its growth habit is not vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte, so a Moss Pole does not apply.
At level 40 native reads 103 HP and 24 ATK. Armour is 25, which is high. Retreat is 16 Sun. The tempo split is stark: opening tempo is 13, near the bottom of the range, while sustained tempo is 34, which is respectable. So this card almost always loses the first turn and then keeps pace afterward. See stats.
By level 100 health reaches 190 and attack 44, with armour at 57. Wood density carries the armour up alongside the health pool, which is the tree pattern. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and the inverted tempo has fallen to its floor — the sustained speed that partly rescued it at level 40 is gone, leaving a very slow, very solid plant.
Broadleaf tree is Competitor: strong into Ruderal — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — and weak to Specialist, meaning succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes. See weaknesses and resistances.
This is a support card, and it is honest about it. The attack numbers are low, the advanced attack is worse than the starter, and the opening tempo means it rarely acts first. What it offers is a genuinely tough body that cannot be pinned, plus a level 68 trait that makes the rest of your native bench better.
Build around it rather than with it: a native-heavy bench turns Network from a footnote into a real contribution. On a mixed bench it does very little.
It is edible with a fruit economy group, so a phosphorus soil amendment pays ×1.25 coins. See the battle lab.
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.