Cornus sericea
A sturdy shrub with a pinning attack, armour that arrives at low HP and a late taunt, playable as either a native buffer or a European invader.
Red-osier dogwood is a mid-DEF Shrub that fights as a sturdy front-liner with a late pinning move. It is native to Eastern and Western North America and invasive in Europe, so the arena can cast it either way - as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It is a solid card: decent bulk, one control tool, armour that arrives at low HP and a late taunt that puts that bulk to use.
Its starter attack, Hedge Hammer, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 33 damage native / 35 invasive - a plain strike. The free once-per-battle ability, Bramble Barrier, comes in at level 25: A wall of thorns — the foe withers against it. The advanced attack, Bramble Scramble, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (42 native / 46 invasive) and pins the target so it cannot retreat (see statuses). Most of your dogwoods sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Red-osier dogwood runs two always-on traits. Marcescence (level 10) gives +4 DEF at half HP or below from retained dead growth. Sapromyophily (level 68) puts the shrub's most conspicuous feature to work — the red stems pull the foe's focus, so any single-victim pick in a group lands here rather than on your bench. See Abilities.
Dogwood carries no special trait keywords - no thorns, no toxin, no spore chemistry - so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic, showing no hazard ring. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear that adds DEF plays to its bulk; as an invasive, offensive gear helps its aggression land.
At level 40 dogwood reads 121 HP native / 106 invasive, with ATK of 26 native versus 32 invasive - native ATK 26 rising to invasive ATK 33. DEF is 11, mid-pack in the shrub band, so it shrugs off some damage. Its tempo is a quick starter and slower cruiser: turn 1 runs on its initiative (38), where it leads, and every turn after on its SPD (34), where it is out-paced. Retreat costs 14 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a bench HP overshield; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, dogwood reaches 233 HP native / 203 invasive and 48 / 64 ATK, and as a shrub its DEF climbs to 23 - a real mid-tier wall well above the soft herbs. Retreat rises to 28 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature dogwood acts last but takes a beating first. See Stats.
As a shrub, dogwood is 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 dogwood as a straightforward bulk card. As a native buffer its DEF and bench overshield shelter a fragile hitter; as an invasive its higher ATK and the late pin let it hold a target in place and grind it down. Lean on the pin once it unlocks, and remember the level-68 taunt turns this card into the one the engine picks on. It is inedible, so any nutrient banks x1.25 XP rather than coins - grow it for stats. It leads early on tempo and settles into a wall as it levels, crossing over around level 19 native and 21 invasive; 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.