Chrysanthemum × morifolium
A soft perennial herb that poisons, self-heals, and can cheat one lethal hit, playing either arena role — an East Asian native or a widespread invader.
Hardy Garden Mum is a low Perennial herb that fights as a defensive attritionist: it chips with poison, mends itself, and occasionally shrugs off a killing blow. It is native to East Asia and invasive across Africa, Europe, eastern and western North America, Oceania, and South America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. Its native form hits softly; the invasive form is a much more credible attacker.
Its starter attack, Volatile Oils, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 23 damage as a native and 28 as an invasive, and applies poison that damages the target over several turns. The free once-per-battle ability, Perennating Bud, comes in at level 25: Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. It restores a chunk of HP. The advanced attack, Tonic, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (31 native / 35 invasive) and is a plain, reliable strike. Most of your copies sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Hardy Garden Mum keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. It draws only one eligible trait, so Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. Read more at Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords and is non-toxic in contact, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it (its poison comes from its attack, not a hazard ring). Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear such as a Cloche suits its stalling game; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 Hardy Garden Mum reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 15 native versus 27 invasive — a wide gap, so the invasive form hits far harder than the native. DEF is just 1, at the perennial-herb floor, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo runs turn 1 on its initiative (34) and every turn after on its SPD (39): out-paced early, more relentless in a long fight. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench HP overshield; as an invasive its ATK is trait-sourced, it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack, and it concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, it reaches 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 25 / 54 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — a soft herb gains health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys health and full Resprout, not protection.
As a perennial herb, Hardy Garden Mum is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is struck for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Hardy Garden Mum as an invasive attacker when you can — the invasive ATK plus poison and a self-heal make it a persistent chip-and-grind threat — and as a native buffer otherwise, where its heal and bench overshield support a stronger hitter. Its economy is strong: it is an edible leaf plant, so feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins (any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead). It fights as a slow-opening skirmisher that finds its tempo in longer fights, leaning on its bulk from around level 28 as a native (about level 29 as an invasive); it is always stronger at higher levels, so 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.