Frangula betulifolia
Beechleaf frangula (Frangula betulifolia) is a shrub that plays a native buffer, with no introduced range to make it an attacker.
Beechleaf frangula is a shrub — one of the more heavily armored plants in this batch, built to absorb and protect. It is native to eastern North America and western North America and has no introduced range, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker scenario for it.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Its starter attack, Bramblemaze (unlocked at level 1, 2 Sun), deals 28 as a native: A maze of brambles the foe can't back out of. Its once-per-battle ability, Chaparral Climax (level 25, free), is pure utility: Owns the dry hillside: heal 60% and +4 ATK. Its advanced attack, Thorn Wall (level 40, 6 Sun), deals 36 native: A bristling, draining blow.
These are the always-on traits this card actually keeps, and the level each one arrives at (a plant draws at most one trait per growth stage). From level 10, Marcescence stiffens its defense when it is hurt, adding DEF while it sits below half health — the retained dead leaves closing ranks. From level 68, Lure works as a taunt: wherever the game would pick one plant at random to take splash, drift, or spread damage, this carrier soaks the hit instead, shielding its benchmates. Below half health the effect drops off until it recovers.
On the field it draws on field gear to shore up its weaknesses. A Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF that suits its firmer frame.
Read at level 40, where every move is unlocked, it holds 103 health and 20 attack as a native, with 13 DEF. That is a firm mid-tier armor — armor is diminishing rather than flat, so it shaves a real fraction off small and medium attackers, though a heavy hitter still punches through. Its retreat costs 16 Sun. On tempo it opens at 32 initiative (which orders the first turn) and cruises at 34 speed (which orders every turn after). Its opening and sustained tempo are close, so it holds a steady place in turn order across the fight. As a native it carries a 15% health cushion (103 versus 89 as an invader), and while benched it projects a green overshield bar onto your active plant, sized by how threatened it is.
Grown to level 100, its health swells to 190 and its attack to 35, and its armor firms up to 28 DEF — genuinely tough, though never a tree-class wall. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as the older plant grows more rooted, and its once-quick tempo has sunk to a sliver — it goes late in turn order now. Maturing buys it raw bulk and hitting power; it costs it the speed edge it had as a seedling.
In the succession type chart, Beechleaf frangula's category (shrub) belongs to the Competitor group. Ruderal, Competitor, and Specialist form a wheel: Competitor hits Ruderal plants (annual-forbs, grasses, aquatic plants, and bulbs) for 1.5× damage, and takes 1.5× from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, and epiphytes), resisting each the other way at about two-thirds. The off-wheel Weird categories are neutral both ways.
A tanky defender: the highest armor of the shrubs here, a stiffening buffer when hurt, and a high-level Lure to soak splash and drift off the bench. Native-only and low-damage, so play it purely as a wall and bench shield. It is not a coin-earner through fertilizer — feeding it any nutrient banks 1.25× experience rather than coins, so its off-battle value is leveling and family-tree collection. On the power curves below, it fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 20, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its fading speed — a shift in which edge dominates, not a sign it is weaker when grown.
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.