Cleome spinosa
A soft, fast annual forb that controls the board with bench-withering attacks and leaves a Seedling token when it falls; a support and collection piece, not a carry.
Spiny spiderflower (Cleome spinosa) is a Annual forb in Supplant — a tall, quick-growing annual. It carries no native or invasive range on record, 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, Hypergrowth, is available from Level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing 30 as a native and 33 as an invasive: Bolts upward mid-fight: +3 ATK, kept for the match.
The free ability, Old-Field Takeover (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Overruns the whole field — the foe's bench withers and sickens.
The advanced attack, Allergenic Odor (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 27 native and 30 invasive: A pollen haze — the foe weakens and its whole bench sickens. 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. Its useful field gear is the general kit: a Calcium/Magnesium amendment for flat DEF, a Cloche to ward the damage-over-time Poison that bypasses its overshield, and Mulch for the economy. It is not a climber, so a Moss Pole does nothing for it. See nativity for how region sets a card's role.
Read at the Level 40 snapshot, its DEF is 2 and it retreats for 16 Sun — an annual forb sits in the softest DEF band there is, so it leans on speed and pressure, not armor. 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 quickens as the fight goes on. 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 the floor-to-cap law swells its biomass HP toward 190 while its DEF barely leaves the floor (3) — a bigger, softer body, not a tougher one. Retreat climbs to 33 Sun as it roots down, and its once-brisk tempo has collapsed to about 1% of cap. Maturing buys bulk, not armor or the early speed edge.
It is a Ruderal on the succession wheel — a pioneer. It reclaims ground from Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes), hitting them ×1.5 and resisting their blows, but is crowded out by Competitors (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees), which hit it ×1.5 and shrug off its own attacks. 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 soft weed whose real value is board control — Old-Field Takeover and Allergenic Odor both wither the enemy bench, and Reseed keeps a body on the field after it dies. It is weak in a straight fight; play it as a bench harasser and coin earner. 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 16: 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 176, 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.