Galium sylvaticum
A non-toxic perennial herb that heals twice over and grinds harder the longer it lasts — a European native buffer or an invasive attacker in Eastern North America.
Wood bedstraw is a Perennial herb that fights as a healing grinder: a slow starter that mends itself on both its ability and its advanced attack and gets faster as a fight drags on. It is native to Europe and invasive across Eastern North America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or an invasive attacker. Its damage is modest; it wins by outlasting rather than out-hitting.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, arrives at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Herbaceous Assault, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (31 native / 33 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes, so it heals twice over once fully unlocked. Most of your bedstraw sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
It keeps one always-on trait, Resprout, which arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser — a real difference for most of the card's life. 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.
Wood bedstraw is non-toxic: it carries no contact recoil and no poison rider on being struck, so nothing punishes an attacker for trading with it. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little DEF — offsets its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 22 native versus 26 invasive — the invasive gap is real, though the attack stays low even so. DEF is just 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on its double healing instead. Its tempo is badly back-loaded: turn 1 is well outpaced on its low initiative (13), but every turn after runs faster on its SPD (34), so it opens slow and grinds harder the longer it lasts. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains an 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, it swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 39 / 48 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, it 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 (perennial herbs, shrubs, trees, vines) and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it as a healing grinder: soak the opening turn, heal through the fight on both its mends, and let its rising tempo carry the back half. As an invasive its higher ATK adds some bite, but it still wins by attrition; as a native it is a serviceable buffer that shields your active from the bench. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow opener leaning harder on its bulk and healing as it levels, crossing over around level 12 as a native and 15 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.