Helianthus hirsutus
Hairy sunflower — a hard-hitting but soft North American herb.
Hairy sunflower is a soft perennial herb with an unusually strong split-crown opener and a Bind-and-Wither ability. It is native to eastern North America and western North America and invasive nowhere the game tracks. So it plays only as a native buffer.
Its kit unlocks in three steps, so most of the time you field it below the level where the whole thing is live. The starter attack, Crown Split, is available from level 1 for 2 Sun. It deals 44 damage. Splits at the crown and strikes from both.
At level 25 it gains a free, once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. It costs no Sun — its price is that you get one use per fight.
The advanced attack, Rhizome Lock, arrives at level 40 for 6 Sun, dealing 22 damage. Locks the foe down underground and saps it.
See Moves and Abilities for how the slots and Sun costs work.
A card keeps at most two always-on traits — drawn deterministically, with the rest of its category pool dropped for good. This one draws two, and they arrive at different levels:
Those are the only two it holds; everything else in its category's pool was passed over. See Abilities for the full trait list.
It carries no special keyword chips — it is not tagged toxic or thorned, and it is not a climber, so a Moss Pole does not fit it.
Soft-bodied cards like this one gain the most from a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment, which adds flat DEF to a thin armor band. See Field gear for what fits.
Numbers here are read at level 40, where every slot is unlocked. It reads 1 DEF and retreats for 12 Sun.
It is slow off the mark (opening initiative 31) but faster in the long exchange (sustained Speed 47 from turn two).
As a native it carries a +15% HP cushion (103 HP), and while it sits on your bench it projects a green HP overshield onto your active, sized by its rarity. It is invasive nowhere, so it never plays as an attacker — it is a buffer.
The overshield, the Sun economy and damage-as-a-ratio are explained on Stats.
By level 100 its biomass HP swells to 190, but its soft-bodied armor stays low at 1 DEF — leveling buys it bulk and attack (climbing to 45), not toughness. Retreat climbs to 24 Sun and its already-inverted tempo sinks toward its floor, so it is markedly slower old than young.
In the succession chart its category, Perennial herb, is a Competitor. It deals ×1.5 damage to annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs, but succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes hit it for ×1.5 and resist its attacks in return (×0.667). Against everything else it is neutral.
The full wheel is on Weaknesses & resistances.
It hits well for its class but has almost no armor, so it trades blows badly against anything sturdy. Use its speed and opener to chip, and bank coins from its edible seed crop.
On the economy side, it is edible (the eaten part is the fruit), so feeding it Phosphorus — the fertilizer that matches a fruit — pays ×1.25 coins, while any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead.
One note on leveling: it fights as a faster skirmisher until about level 27, after which its growing bulk and attack take over as the dominant edge. It is stronger overall at higher levels — turn order is only a small lever — 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.