Crepis biennis
A fast-cruising perennial herb that hits hard, mends mid-fight and can cling to life once, playing either a native European buffer or an Eastern North American invader with a leaf-fed coin income.
Rough hawk's beard is an upright Perennial herb that fights as a back-loaded hitter: it opens a step behind but grows relentless the longer a fight runs, mends itself mid-fight, and can cling to life once. It is native to Europe and invasive across Eastern North America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It hits hard for a herb, but its armor is the thinnest here.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 35 damage as a native and 37 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Alkaloid Reservoir, arrives at level 25: Empties a season of alkaloids into the foe — saturating Poison. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (30 native / 32 invasive) as another plain hit. Most of your hawk's beard sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Rough hawk's beard keeps one always-on trait, Resprout, which arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — so for most of the card's life it runs at the weaker half. When it works it lets hawk's beard survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health, but as a sustain trait it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Rough hawk's beard does not hold the Toxin trait, so striking it carries no contact recoil and its attacks lay no poison. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche or a calcium or magnesium amendment for a little DEF — is close to mandatory given how thin its armor is; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 rough hawk's beard reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 31 invasive — a clear step up when invasive. DEF is just 1, at the very bottom of the perennial-herb band, so it hits hard but folds fast under return fire. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (27) and every turn after on its faster SPD (43), so it is out-paced off the mark but relentless once a fight settles. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; 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, rough hawk's beard swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 45 / 59 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and essentially nothing in armor, so it stays fragile against any real hitter. Retreat rises to 23 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature hawk's beard acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing does bring Resprout to full strength, its one real dividend.
As a perennial herb, rough hawk's beard sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), 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 rough hawk's beard as a fragile hitter that trades hard: it loses the opening exchange but its high ATK and SPD punish anything that lingers, and its heal plus Resprout stretch its short life. As a native it makes a serviceable bench buffer; as an invasive its higher ATK makes it a genuine racer, though its paper armor and Faustian bench cost mean it must win before it is hit back. On economy it earns its keep: because its leaf is a resolved edible part, feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins, while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth. It plays as a slow opener that leans harder on its offense as it levels, crossing over around level 24 as a native and 26 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, so there is no reason to 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.