Heracleum sibiricum
An invasive-only European perennial herb that poisons on contact with its opening attack, cruises in long fights, and mends itself.
Siberian hogweed is a tall Perennial herb that fights as an attritional attacker: its opening hit poisons the enemy, it mends itself mid-fight, and it out-paces foes as a battle drags on. It is native nowhere on record and invasive in Europe, so the arena only ever fields it as an invasive attacker — it never plays the native buffer role. It is a serviceable disruptive card whose poison and healing matter more than its middling raw damage.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 31 damage and leaving the target poisoned with its bitter sap. The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, arrives at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. — a mid-fight mend that suits its grind. The advanced attack, Alkaloid Ambush, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 damage) and draws on its deep roots for a heavier blow. Most of your hogweed sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn. See Moves.
Siberian hogweed 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 of its health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Siberian hogweed carries no trait keywords, and it is non-toxic — so although its starter attack applies Poison to the enemy, striking the hogweed itself does not poison the attacker; there is no contact recoil here. (The poison is an offensive effect of the move, not a defensive trait; see statuses for how it ticks.) Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As an invasive attacker, offensive field gear makes its aggression and poison count.
At level 40 Siberian hogweed reads 89 HP and 29 ATK as the invasive card it always is. 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 poison and healing instead. Its tempo is back-loaded: a low initiative (28) means it is slow off the mark, but a higher SPD (34) lets it out-pace foes from turn 2 on, so it grows more dangerous the longer a fight runs. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, Siberian hogweed swells to 165 HP and 56 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter and leans on poison and Resprout to trade up. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so it acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, Siberian hogweed 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 and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Siberian hogweed as an invasive attacker and disruptor: lead with it to poison the enemy active, then heal and out-cruise the exchange as its SPD takes over. Its raw damage is modest, so its value is in the poison, the mend, and the trade rather than in bursting anything down; the Faustian self-damage means it chips your own bench as it swings. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP as a growth boost rather than paying coins. It fights as a slow-starting cruiser whose bulk and staying power grow with level, crossing over around level 23 — but it is always stronger at higher levels in raw stats, 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.