× Hesperotropsis leylandii
A neutral-range conifer with no nativity bonus in the arena.
The Leyland Cypress is a conifer in Supplant. It carries no recorded native or invasive range, so the arena never grants it a nativity bonus: it always fights as a plain neutral card, with neither the native HP cushion nor the invasive attacker's edge.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Needle Smother is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Litterfall, unlocks at level 25: Drops a season of needles — the foe's whole bench withers. The advanced attack, Serotiny Surprise, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Cones that only fire opens, all at once, across the bench.
Its attacks land for about 25 (starter) and 27 (advanced) at the snapshot level — plain base numbers, since no nativity bonus applies.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (16) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (34) decides every turn after. This one is slow off the mark but relentless once the fight settles — it usually loses turn 1 and then takes the tempo from turn 2 onward. See turn order for how the two interact.
It reads Photosynthesis from level 10, and a second passive, Network, stacks on at level 68.
Photosynthesis. A 60% chance to heal itself in sunny weather — reliable-ish grind, but weather-dependent and never guaranteed.
Network. While this plant sits on your bench it lends the active card a gold Sun-overshield bar — a reserve that is only spent once the base Sun bar runs dry. It is a support perk it plays for any active, native or invasive, so its real value shows when it is benched, not fighting.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 122 (its plain, un-cushioned base), DEF 19, with a retreat cost of 20 Sun and tempo pips of 16 initiative / 34 SPD. Its DEF is conifer-grade wall, hardening with level on its wood density; damage is diminishing armor, not flat subtraction, and only poison bypasses it. With no nativity bonus its HP and ATK sit at base — no native cushion, no invasive ATK ramp — so it is a middle-of-the-road body on every stat. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
It hardens into a wall — DEF rising to about 42 on wood density and HP toward 240. A slow, very durable endgame body. Retreat rises to 44 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
In the succession wheel it is a Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
With no nativity role it is a straightforward neutral body — no cushion to lean on, no attacker's edge to exploit. Conifers are walls: high wood-density DEF and deep HP make this a genuinely strong front-line card — slow, but very hard to shift, and its 60% heals help it grind. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 11, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so 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.