Cornus florida
A native-only understory shrub with even tempo and real shrub armor, trading modestly while healing and withering foes.
Flowering dogwood is an understory Shrub that fights as a steady, moderately armored trader. It is native to both Eastern and Western North America and has no invasive form, so the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer for your bench. It is a dependable middle-tier card: nothing flashy, but shrub armor, a heal, and a withering attack make it a reliable body. See nativity.
Its starter attack, Hedge Hammer, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun for about 32 damage — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Nurse Shrub, arrives at level 25: Shelters the whole bench — evens their health, and calls the fallen back. Its advanced attack, Hedgerow Havoc, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (27 damage) and saps the target, withering it as it strikes. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See moves.
Flowering dogwood runs two always-on traits. At level 10 Extrafloral Nectaries turns its nectar glands into a bodyguard contract — anything that hits it sheds 3% of its own max HP, ignoring DEF and shields. At level 68 Sapromyophily adds the showier job: the tree pulls single-target picks onto itself, so Seed Rain, forced swaps and spore-drift find it before they find your bench. See Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it, and it is non-toxic with no 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 or a Ca/Mg amendment stacks nicely with its shrub armor to make it an even tougher wall.
At level 40 it reads 121 HP with 25 ATK; there is no invasive form, so it has only the one attack line. DEF is 12, mid-to-upper in the shrub band, so it genuinely blunts incoming hits. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (35) and every turn after on its SPD (35), which sit at the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 14 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 it swells to 233 HP and 46 ATK, and as a shrub its DEF climbs to 24 — a solid wall that shrugs off lesser hitters. Retreat rises to 29 Sun and its tempo sinks to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature bush acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys real bulk and armor, paying only in speed.
As a shrub it sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and is struck for only x0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it as a native bench wall: its shrub armor and HP cushion prop up a fragile hitter, while its heal and withering attack let it trade steadily and stall out damage races. Its even tempo means it neither leads nor lags, so it fits comfortably in most rotations as a durable anchor rather than a threat. Its value is also economic: it is inedible, so any nutrient banks x1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as an even-tempo trader whose bulk leans in harder as it levels, crossing around level 18 — always stronger in raw stats higher up, so never 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.