Goodyera pubescens
A slow, low-damage woodland orchid that only ever fights as a native bench-sitter, useful more for the dex than for battle.
Downy rattlesnake-plantain is a woodland Epiphyte that fights as a slow, low-damage attacker. It is native to Eastern North America and has no invasive form, so the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer that leans on the rest of your bench rather than carrying a fight itself. It is a largely collectible card with unremarkable damage, so treat it as dex filler more than a battler — though it can never be Bound, and from level 68 it taunts. See nativity for how roles are assigned.
Its starter attack, Creeping Crush, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun for about 24 damage — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Aerial Anchor, arrives at level 25: Anchors hard to the bark — Bind and Wither the foe. Its advanced attack, Velamen Vice, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and deals about 24 damage while pinning the target so it cannot retreat. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See moves.
Downy rattlesnake-plantain carries a working trait on each riser. Canopy Anchorage (level 10) makes it immune to Bound — nothing pins this card. Sapromyophily (level 68) turns its patterned rosette into a lure, taking the engine's single-victim pick out of a group. See Abilities.
It carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin, no spore chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for striking it, and it is non-toxic with no hazard ring. Although it is an epiphyte in the wild, its growth habit in play is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear such as a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment suits it best, shoring up a frame that is otherwise very soft.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP with 25 ATK; there is no invasive form, so it has only the one attack line. DEF is just 2, at the bottom of the epiphyte band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is uneven: turn 1 runs on a low initiative (13), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a much higher SPD (34), making it relentless once a fight settles. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100 it swells to 190 HP and 45 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as an epiphyte it gains health without ever gaining real armor, so it stays fragile against any true hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and its tempo sinks to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature specimen acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys survival through sheer HP, not durability.
As an epiphyte it sits in the Specialist succession group (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes). It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs) for x1.5 and is struck for only x0.667 by them; it is weak to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), which hit it for x1.5 while shrugging off its blows. Against other Specialists and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play it purely as a native bench-sitter: park it behind a real attacker so its HP cushion and bench overshield prop up a fragile hitter, and let the front card do the damage. On its own it is weak, but its level-68 taunt does give it a genuine job in player-versus-player (PvP) play: eating the pick meant for something better. Its value is mostly economic and collectible: it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady growth-fund for the dex. It fights as a slow-opening skirmisher whose bulk only matters late, crossing over around level 12 — but it is always stronger in raw stats 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.