Cicuta maculata
A native-only North American herb that heals as it strikes and punishes attackers with a deadly contact recoil.
Spotted water hemlock is a Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing contact hazard: it mends itself while it strikes and inflicts a deadly recoil on anyone who hits it. It is native to Eastern and Western North America and has no invasive card, so the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer for your bench — there is no attacker version to play. It defends through healing and poison, not armor.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 35 damage as a straightforward hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Perennating Bud, comes in at level 25: Breaks a stored bud: heal 40%. It mends the plant. The advanced attack, Winterkill, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (28 damage) and heals the plant as it lands. Most of your water hemlock sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider.
Water hemlock keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives on the level 68 riser. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Water hemlock holds the Toxin trait at the deadly tier: striking it Poisons the attacker hard, and that recoil fires in player-versus-player (PvP) too. Sulfur soil does not neutralize it, though a Cloche-warded attacker absorbs it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a Ca/Mg amendment for a little extra DEF — plays to its heal-and-punish game.
At level 40 water hemlock reads 103 HP and ATK 27 (this is a native-only card, so there is no invasive stat line). DEF is 4, a step above the perennial-herb floor. Its tempo is a slow starter but a faster cruiser: turn 1 runs on its initiative (32) and every turn after on its SPD (34), so it is out-paced early and relentless later. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, water hemlock climbs to 190 HP and 50 ATK, and its DEF reaches 8 — modest armor for a soft herb, so most of its growth is in health. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys it the durability to keep healing and poisoning through a long fight.
As a perennial herb, water hemlock is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike 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 water hemlock as a native buffer that outlasts: the HP cushion, bench overshield, self-healing attacks, and deadly contact recoil let it soak damage and tax attackers over a long fight. It is a support piece, not a finisher. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a self-mending skirmisher until about level 22, after which its bulk takes over, so there is no reason to hold it back from leveling.
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.