Chaenomeles speciosa
A thorny shrub that punishes attackers and can buff its own damage - an East Asian native or a wide-ranging invader.
Chinese quince is a thorny Shrub that plays as a spiky aggressor: it returns damage to whatever hits it and can wind up its own ATK. It is native to East Asia and invasive across Europe, Eastern North America, Oceania, and South Asia, so the arena can field it as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its high invasive ATK makes it a genuinely threatening card on offense. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Bramblemaze, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 27 damage as a native and 31 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Thicket Formation, arrives at level 25: Closes into thicket — Bind, and the foe can't heal. The advanced attack, Fruit Drop Kick, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (25 native / 29 invasive) and can pin the target in place. Most of your quinces sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Chinese quince keeps one always-on trait: Thorns, which arrives at level 10 and never leaves. From then on, any plant that strikes it in contact takes recoil damage in return, so it punishes aggressors just by standing on the front line. See Abilities.
It carries the thorns keyword, so attackers pay to hit it - see statuses for how contact recoil resolves. It is non-toxic, so beyond thorns there is no poison and no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear stacks nicely with the thorn recoil; as an invasive, offensive gear leans into its strong ATK.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 19 native versus 30 invasive - a large invasive jump that is its main selling point. DEF is 11, mid-range for the shrub band. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (37) and every turn after on its SPD (30), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced in a long fight. Retreat costs 14 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, quince reaches 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 33 / 61 ATK, with DEF climbing to 23 - a real shrub cushion, short of a tree's wall. Retreat rises to 29 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it acts late but hits hard and still punishes contact. Leveling sharpens both its damage and its thorn payback.
As a shrub, Chinese quince 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 hit 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 punishing attacker. As an invasive its high ATK plus thorn recoil make it a strong front-line threat; as a native the thorns and HP cushion turn it into an annoying buffer that costs opponents to attack. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling rather than coins. In player-versus-player (PvP) matches it opens fast and hits hard early, with its bulk taking over around level 22 as a native (about level 23 as an invasive) - 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.