Houstonia caerulea
A native-only perennial herb — a soft, cheap staller with a single coin-flip Resprout and almost no armor.
Azure bluet is a tiny, low Perennial herb that fights as a cheap, soft staller: even hits, modest damage, and one lucky escape when things go wrong. It is native to Eastern North America and no invasive card exists — the arena only ever fields it as a native buffer for your bench. It is a weak card and an honest collection piece more than a competitor: play it for the bench cushion, not for its fists.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and lands a reliable, even strike for about 34 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Alkaloid Reservoir, arrives at level 25: Empties a season of alkaloids into the foe — saturating Poison. It is a mid-fight mend that stretches its longevity. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (29 native) and draws on deep roots for a heavier blow. Most of your bluets 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.
Azure bluet keeps a single always-on trait, Resprout, and because it draws only one eligible trait, that slot is all it gets. 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.
Azure bluet carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin, no spore chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for striking it; it is non-toxic, so nothing chemical bites back either. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche, or a calcium/magnesium amendment for a little extra DEF — suits its stalling game.
At level 40 azure bluet reads 103 HP and 23 ATK. DEF is just 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor — and since damage is diminishing armor (ATK ÷ (ATK+DEF)), that thin DEF barely blunts anything. Its tempo runs on initiative (51) on turn 1 and on SPD (34) every turn after; read the two together — the higher number tells you whether it opens quick and fades or starts slow and cruises. 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, azure bluet swells to 190 HP and 41 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. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature bluet acts last against almost anything younger. Maturing buys it health, not safety.
As a perennial herb, azure bluet 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 azure bluet as a cheap native buffer: bench it to lend a fragile hitter the HP cushion and overshield, or lead with it to trade evenly and heal through a lull. Its damage is slight, so it is support, not a finisher, and it is a weak card overall — keep expectations low. On economy, it is not an edible-part plant here, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP as a growth boost rather than paying coins. It plays as an even-tempo skirmisher whose modest bulk takes over as it levels, crossing over around level 31 — 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.