Clethra barbinervis
A native-only shrub whose value is a stall-and-splash kit and steady leaf-edible coins, backed by an ant-guard sting and a late decoy taunt.
Japanese clethra is a shrub-category card. It counts as native in East Asia and is invasive nowhere, so it always fights as a native buffer — there is no attacker version. As a shrub it is a Competitor with a firm, mid-range armor band.
Its starter attack, Berry, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and 27 damage — A measured strike. Its free once-per-battle ability, Arrested Succession, unlocks at level 25: Stops the forest before it starts — the foe stalls and can't heal. That denial — stalling the foe and blocking its healing — is the kit's most useful piece. The advanced attack, Hedgerow Havoc, arrives at level 40 for 6 Sun and 25 damage, striking the enemy bench — The whole hedgerow comes down on the bench. No move carries the initiative rider. See moves.
Reading its trait schedule, it keeps two always-on traits, both genuinely working. From level 10 it has extrafloral-nectaries: its nectar recruits ant bodyguards, so any attacker that lands a hit on it is chipped for about 3% of that attacker's max HP — flat damage that ignores DEF and the overshield. At level 68 it gains lure (Sapromyophily), a working taunt. Wherever the engine would pick a single victim out of a group — a splash or scatter hit, or a bench-reaching drift — this card acts as a decoy and takes that hit instead, soaking incidental single-target damage off its allies; because it arrives at its mature tier, it always taunts rather than only while healthy. Neither trait is one of the roughly 60%-of-the-time sustain heals, so both are on continuously once unlocked. It holds no Toxin trait, so contact does not poison an attacker. See abilities.
It carries no confirmed keyword traits and is not toxic. Its habit is not a climber, so it is not Moss Pole-eligible. For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds DEF to its already-firm shrub armor, and a Nitrogen fertilizer banks its leaf-edible coin bonus (see Gameplay uses).
At the snapshot level of 40 it reads 103 HP (with the +15% cushion), 19 ATK and 11 DEF, a mid shrub value. Its opening tempo (initiative) is 21 and its sustained tempo (SPD) is 36, so it is a distinctly slow starter that speeds up after turn one — expect to take the first hit and out-pace the foe afterward. Retreat costs 13 Sun. Benched it projects a sliver HP overshield, being Least-Concern. See stats.
By level 100 its HP climbs to 190 and its DEF hardens to 22, a solid mid wall for a shrub, while retreat rises to 25 Sun. Its tempo has fallen to roughly 1% of cap, so even the modest sustained-speed edge it shows at level 40 is gone by the endgame — it wins on bulk and denial, not order.
As a shrub it is a Competitor: strong ×1.5 against Ruderal cards (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), and weak against Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), who hit it for ×1.5 while its hits on them are resisted to ×0.667. Neutral against other Competitors and the Weird group. See weaknesses & resistances.
Native-only, it is a control-flavored buffer: durable, low-attack, and built around Arrested Succession to stall a foe and shut off its healing while your team does the work. It will not carry a fight on damage alone. Its reliable value is coins: edible with a leaf part, so Nitrogen fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins, while other nutrients bank ×1.25 XP. It shifts from a tempo-led to a bulk-led body around level 16 — which edge dominates, not when it is strongest, since it only grows more powerful with levels.
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.