Clethra acuminata
A native-only shrub with a sapping advanced hit, middling armor, a contact tax on attackers and a bench heal when it falls.
Mountain sweetpepperbush is a Shrub that fights on plain stats: a mid armor band and a sapping advanced attack, with nothing flashy behind them. It is native to Eastern North America and has no invasive card, so the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer — there is no attacker version to build. It is a middling card, held back by the lack of a working passive.
Its starter attack, Chipmunk Horde, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 25 damage — a plain hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Nurse Shrub, arrives at level 25: Shelters the whole bench — evens their health, and calls the fallen back. The advanced attack, Thicket, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (33 damage) and saps the target as it lands. Most of your sweetpepperbushes sit below level 40, where only the starter is open. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Mountain sweetpepperbush runs one working trait per riser. Extrafloral Nectaries (level 10) charges attackers 3% of their own max HP for contact, past DEF and the overshield. Drupe Mast (level 68) heals every surviving ally 8% of its max HP when this card goes down. See Abilities.
Mountain sweetpepperbush carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin. Non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native it wants defensive field gear: a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment to shore up its middling armor, on top of the contact tax it already levies.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP, with ATK of 20 (native-only, so there is no invasive variant to compare). DEF is 11, mid-low for a shrub, so it holds up better than a succulent but is no wall. Its tempo runs slow then relentless: turn 1 uses its initiative (21), every turn after its SPD (34), so it is out-paced off the mark but the faster cruiser in a long fight. Retreat costs 13 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, mountain sweetpepperbush reaches 190 HP and 36 ATK, with DEF up to 22 — a shrub gains meaningful bulk but never a tree's wall. Retreat rises to 25 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys durability and the sapping hit, but never a passive ability, because it has none.
As a shrub, mountain sweetpepperbush is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, 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 mountain sweetpepperbush as a native buffer: its armor and HP cushion let it soak a few hits and protect the bench, and the sapping advanced attack wears an opponent down once it unlocks. It is a plain, honest support that wants good matchups and defensive gear — and it pays the bench out when it dies. It is inedible, so any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP, making it a steady growth-earner. It fights as a slow-building cruiser that leans on its bulk as it grows, crossing over around level 15 — always stronger higher up, so keep leveling it.
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.