Cryptotaenia canadensis
A perennial-herb that is a poisoning buffer where native and a hardening racer where invasive, with genuine self-heal.
Canadian honewort is a perennial-herb: a soft, fast card that plays differently by nativity. It is native to eastern North America — a buffer with a +15% HP cushion and a bench overshield — and invasive in Europe, Oceania and South America, where it becomes a harder-hitting attacker. The arena region decides which role you get.
Its starter, Bitter Sap (Level 1, 2 Sun), deals 30 native / 30 invasive and Bitter compounds poison the foe. The free ability, Chronosequence (25), is Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate (40, 6 Sun), deals 30 native / 30 invasive and Strikes and treats itself — heal 30%. — it strikes and heals at once. See Moves.
From Level 10 it carries Bitter Principle: striking it Withers the attacker, cutting its ATK, on every damaging hit it takes. At Level 68 Contractile Roots stacks on: at each checkup it gains a point of DEF, up to five, as its roots pull deeper — a slow hardening over a long fight. Between its self-heal move and this, it is stickier than its raw DEF suggests.
No thorns or toxin keyword; its poison is from its starter, not a toxicity tier. Not Moss-Pole-eligible. A Calcium/Magnesium field gear amendment helps its soft DEF; edible (leaf), so Nitrogen pays coins.
At Level 40 it reads 103 HP / 26 ATK as native and 89 HP / 26 ATK as invasive — a modest attack jump when invasive. Its DEF is a soft 4, and retreat is 16 Sun. Its opening initiative is 41 and sustained SPD is 34: a fast starter that leads turn one, then eases to a still-quick cruise. As an invasive it also pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack (growing with level) and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out.
By Level 100 HP reaches 190 native / 165 invasive and ATK 47 / 49, while base DEF stays soft at 8 (Contractile Roots aside). Retreat rises to 33 Sun and its early speed fades. Leveling buys biomass and attack, not much armor.
As a Competitor it hits ruderals for 1.5x and is resisted to 0.667x by Specialists; neutral against other Competitors and Weird. See the succession wheel.
Play it to its region: native, bench it for the overshield and let Bitter Principle and its poison starter wear attackers down; invasive, field it as a fast racer that heals itself as it strikes, accepting the bench self-damage. It is edible with a resolved leaf part, so Nitrogen (the leaf fertilizer) pays the 1.25x coin bonus; other nutrients bank XP. A capable single-player card in either role, though frail enough to want backup. It skirmishes on speed until about Level 26 (native) or 30 (invasive), after which its power leads.
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.