Helianthus angustifolius
A tall wetland perennial herb that poisons and self-heals through long fights, and can play either arena role — a North American native or a European and Oceanian invader.
Swamp sunflower is a tall, soft Perennial herb that fights as a cheap, self-healing skirmisher: light armor, steady damage, and a habit of wearing opponents down over time. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive across Europe and Oceania, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a middling card, dependable rather than hard-hitting, and it wants a stronger finisher beside it.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 29 as an invasive, and it leaves the target poisoned so it keeps bleeding health after the hit lands. The free once-per-battle ability, Seral Persistence, comes in at level 25: Refuses to be replaced: heal 60%, and the foe can't heal. The advanced attack, Crown Division, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (40 native / 40 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your sunflowers sit well below level 40, where only the starter move is available.
Swamp sunflower keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
Swamp sunflower carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic: no contact recoil and no poison rider on being struck. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, general defensive field gear suits its stalling game; as an invasive, lean into offense to make its aggression count.
At level 40 swamp sunflower reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 24 invasive — the invasive edge is real but slight. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it absorbs hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (37) and every turn after on its SPD (37), which sit at the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, swamp sunflower swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 42 / 43 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health, never armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 22 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature sunflower acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, swamp sunflower is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play swamp sunflower as a cheap, self-healing filler that poisons, trades evenly, and buys time. As a native it makes a fair buffer — the HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile hitter survive — while as an invasive its aggression is only moderate, so it works better as support than as a finisher. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady growth investment. It fights as an even-tempo skirmisher early and leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 26 — there is never a 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.