Hydrangea arborescens
A shrub that fights as a plain attacker but hardens at low HP and heals the whole bench on its knockout — an Eastern North American native or an East Asian and European invader.
Smooth hydrangea is a Shrub that fights as a plain attacker, backed by low-HP plating and a bench heal on its knockout. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive across East Asia and Europe, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its damage is middling and it brings no trait support, so it is more a collection piece than a threat.
Its starter attack, Snarl, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 30 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Facilitation, arrives at level 25: Shelters its own and starves the rest: heal 50%, and the foe's bench withers. The advanced attack, Coppice Comeback, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (24 native / 25 invasive) and saps the target. Most of your smooth hydrangea sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Smooth hydrangea carries two always-on traits. Marcescence (level 10) keeps the spent heads on as plating, worth +4 DEF at half HP or below. Drupe Mast (level 68) makes the shrub's death a bench-wide heal of 8% max HP each. See Abilities.
It is non-toxic, so striking it carries no contact recoil and it lays no poison on the attacker. Its 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 DEF — helps it trade; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its attack. See statuses.
At level 40 smooth hydrangea reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 24 native versus 27 invasive — the invasive form hits harder, though neither number is high. DEF is 11, in the firmer shrub band, so it has some armor but is no wall. Its tempo is uneven: turn 1 runs on its lower initiative (41) and every turn after on its faster SPD (51), so it is out-paced off the mark but relentless once a fight settles. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and projects an HP overshield onto your active while benched; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, smooth hydrangea swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 43 / 53 ATK, with DEF firming to 21 — a genuine shrub's worth of armor, though short of a tree's wall. Retreat rises to 24 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature hydrangea acts last against almost anything younger.
As a shrub, smooth hydrangea 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 smooth hydrangea as a native buffer whose bench cushion and overshield help your active, or as an invasive attacker that trades on its slightly higher ATK — with only average damage it is a modest card either way, though it hardens when hurt and pays the bench out when it dies. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow-opening, faster-cruising skirmisher leaning harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 31 as a native and 34 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, 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.