Hydnophytum moseleyanum
A native-only epiphyte that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Smooth Ant Plant is an epiphyte in Supplant. It is native to Oceania and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.
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. Defenestrate is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Aerial Anchor, unlocks at level 25: Anchors hard to the bark — Bind and Wither the foe. The advanced attack, Epiphyte Mat, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Mats the branches over — the foe's bench wilts.
Its attacks land for about 22 (starter) and 22 (advanced) at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (28) 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.
Smooth ant plant holds two always-on traits, and both suit an epiphyte built around its own hollow caudex. Canopy Anchorage (level 10) makes it immune to Bound. Tank Reservoir (level 68) supplies its own HP overshield bar — stored capacity the plant provides for itself. See Abilities.
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 103, DEF 2, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun and tempo pips of 28 initiative / 34 SPD. Its DEF sits at the soft floor — expect no real plating. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. 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.
HP creeps up toward 190 but DEF stays at the floor (3); it never stops being frail. Retreat rises to 33 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.
Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. An epiphyte is a frail, low-armor card, so this one leans on its traits rather than its body — Canopy Anchorage from level 10 and a Tank Reservoir overshield from level 68. 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 22, 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.