Foeniculum vulgare
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a competitor perennial herb in Supplant — a native buffer and invasive attacker whose game role is set out below.
Fennel is an aromatic umbellifer and a well-known invasive weed, notably in California. In battle it is a Perennial herb — a Competitor on the succession chart. Native across Africa, East Asia, Europe and South Asia, it plays as a defensive buffer; where it has spread as an invasive into eastern North America, western North America, Oceania and South America, it turns attacker.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 30 damage as a native and 34 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, unlocks at Lv 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. The advanced attack, Taproot Canal (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 27 native and 32 invasive.
From Lv 10 it carries Bitter Principle, so an attacker that strikes it is Withered (its attack drops by 2). At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Resprout, a 60% chance (it triggers about three times in five) to cling on through one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter HP, once per battle.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF, which a soft-bodied plant like this feels most; feeding it Nitrogen (N), the nutrient matching its edible leaf, pays bonus coins. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 26 ATK as a native, or 89 HP and 39 ATK as an invasive, with 4 DEF. As a native it adds a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it trades that for the higher attack ceiling and pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. On defence, its DEF stays near the floor, so it relies on tempo and offence rather than soaking hits. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 31 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 34 — making it steady in both the opening and the sustained phases of a fight. Retreating it costs 16 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 8 — a soft-category plant stays soft no matter how much biomass it puts on. Attack reaches 47, retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver, so the speed it relied on young is spent. It grows bulkier but never becomes a wall.
On the succession chart a Perennial herb is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A strong invasive attacker: its wide introduced range lifts its attack sharply, its ability Poisons, it Withers attackers on contact, and it can Resprout late. Leaf-edible for coins. A reliable invasive coin-earner. Because its edible part (leaf) is recorded, feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 22 (a little later as an invasive, around Lv 22), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.