Dahlia imperialis
A ruderal bulb whose opening hit poisons the target — a neutral base card in the arena, tied to no region.
Bell tree dahlia is a soft Bulb that fights as a back-loaded skirmisher with a poisoning opener, a bench-borrowed defence and little armor of its own. It has no native or invasive region on record, so the arena runs it as a neutral base card — no native cushion, no invasive aggression, just its own line. Its shell is thin; it is a collection and coin piece.
Its starter attack, Bulb Toxin, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 34 damage and leaving the target poisoned. The free once-per-battle ability, Naturalized Sward, arrives at level 25: Spreads through the whole meadow — the foe's bench withers. It is a mid-fight mend that can also pin the target. The advanced attack, Scape Goat, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, dealing about 24 damage and spilling onto the enemy bench. Most of your bell tree dahlia sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
It keeps two always-on traits. The first, Duff Stuff, arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is the active plant its effective DEF rises by half the combined DEF of your still-alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the cushion shrinks as those allies faint, though the donors keep their own DEF. It is a genuine, always-on defence, not a one-off. The second, Resprout, arrives on the level 68 riser: when it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter of its health, but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Bell tree dahlia carries no Toxin trait, so touching it causes no contact recoil — though its starter still leaves the target poisoned when it lands. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a neutral card, field gear tunes it either way — a Cloche or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little defence, or offensive gear for more punch. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP and 22 ATK, a modest baseline for a soft ruderal. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the bulb band, so on its own it takes hits with almost no armor and leans on its benched ruderals through Duff Stuff instead. Its tempo is back-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (37) and every turn after on its SPD (41), so it is out-paced off the mark but steadier once a fight settles. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a neutral card it takes no native HP cushion and no benched overshield, and pays no invasive self-damage — it simply fights on its own numbers, backed by its poison and its bench. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, it swells to 190 HP and 40 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — as a soft bulb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 22 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature bell tree dahlia acts last against almost anything younger.
As a ruderal bulb, bell tree dahlia sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, vines, trees), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
As a neutral card it plays the same in either seat: lead with it to poison the enemy active, chip through with its bench-splashing advanced attack, and rely on Duff Stuff to borrow armor from a full ruderal bench while it is up front. It is fragile and its numbers are modest, so treat it as a support and poison piece rather than a finisher, and lean on its heal and bench to keep it alive; Resprout can buy one more turn late in a game. On economy it is edible with a resolved root, so feeding it Potassium pays ×1.25 coins while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth. It plays as a slow-starting, faster-cruising skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 32 — 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.