× Chitalpa tashkentensis
A broadleaf tree that cannot be pinned, heals big off its ability, and can spring back from a knockout about a third of the time; a slow, tanky wall that arrives late and holds.
Chitalpa (× Chitalpa tashkentensis) is a Broadleaf tree in Supplant — an ornamental hybrid tree. It carries no native or invasive range on record — it is a garden cross — so in every arena it plays as a neutral card, taking neither the native health cushion nor the invasive attacker's edge.
Numbers below are read at Level 40, where every move in its kit has unlocked.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. The starter attack, Branch Bash, is available from Level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing 29 as a native and 31 as an invasive: Pins the foe under a fallen branch.
The free ability, Shade Tolerance (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Waits out the dark: heal 40%, and the foe can't heal.
The advanced attack, Root Heave (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 21 native and 23 invasive: Heaves the ground up under the foe — trapped, and sapped. None of its moves carry the initiative rider, so it never seizes first strike — turn order runs purely on its tempo stats (see Stats). Most cards you meet are well below this Level 40 snapshot and unlock their kit slot by slot.
Every card keeps at most two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool with the rest dropped for good. This one keeps two, and both are working traits — there are no inert abilities in the game:
Each arrives at full strength on the riser shown, so for much of the card's climb it plays with only the earlier of the two; the second joins late.
It carries no Toxin or Thorns trait, so biting it inflicts no chemical or thorn recoil on an attacker. As a tree it wants a Calcium/Magnesium amendment on top of its already-high category DEF and a Cloche to protect its long grind; Mulch supports the economy. It is not a climber, so a Moss Pole does nothing for it. Note it did not draw the broadleaf-tree Network trait, so it projects no gold Sun overshield for the bench. See field gear and nativity.
Read at the Level 40 snapshot, its DEF is 24 and it retreats for 16 Sun — a broadleaf tree climbs toward a genuine wall as it levels, and even at this snapshot its DEF already reads well above any weed or shrub. Turn 1 is ordered by its initiative (13) and every turn after by its SPD (34); here SPD outruns its initiative, so it is slow off the mark and only middling afterward — a tree fights on bulk, not speed. With no native or invasive posting it plays neutral: no +15% native HP cushion and no invasive attacker term on ATK, so its health and attack sit between the two extremes the tokens show — a native card would read 103 HP and 22 ATK, an invasive one 89 HP and 29 ATK. Because it is never benched as a native, it projects no green overshield bar for allies. See stats.
By Level 100 its DEF hardens into a genuine wall at 55 — wood density doing the work — while HP climbs toward 190. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and its already-slow tempo bottoms out near 1% of cap. It ends a heavy, armored trunk that soaks hits and answers slowly.
It is a Competitor on the succession wheel: it crowds out Ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs), hitting them ×1.5 and resisting their blows, but is outlasted by Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes), which turn that ×1.5 against it. The Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivores, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) sit off the wheel and trade neutrally with it. See weaknesses & resistances and categories.
A slow, tanky wall: Buttress Roots means it can never be Bound, Shade Tolerance heals it 40% while locking the foe out of healing, and Epicormic Buds gives it a 35% chance to revive after a knockout. It arrives late — its kit and bulk only matter once it has leveled — but a grown Chitalpa soaks hits and grinds. It has no Network overshield, so value it as a personal wall, not a bench engine. With no wild range it never gets a native cushion or an invasive edge, so lean on its kit and traits rather than a nativity role. It has no resolved edible part, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — a growth boost, not an income stream. On the total-power curve its neutral crossover falls around Level 12: below it the card leans on its turn-order edge, above it on bulk and attack — and it only grows stronger as it levels (its raw Level 100 stat sum is 228, a size readout, not a win rank).
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.