Hypericum pulchrum
A healing perennial herb that plays either arena role — a European native buffer or an Oceanian invader.
St. Johnswort is a slender Perennial herb that fights as a healing skirmisher: it trades ordinary blows and mends itself through the exchange. It is native to Europe and invasive across Oceania, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its damage is modest; its staying power comes from its heal and its resprout.
Its starter attack, Volatile Oils, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 26 damage as a native and 27 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Seral Persistence, arrives at level 25: Refuses to be replaced: heal 60%, and the foe can't heal. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Tonic, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (34 native / 35 invasive) as a plain, harder strike. Most of your St. Johnswort sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
St. Johnswort keeps one always-on trait, Resprout. It arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 riser, so the weaker version is what you get for most of the card's life. 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 — a lucky reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
St. Johnswort is non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider. 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 — offsets its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 St. Johnswort reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 25 invasive — the invasive form hits a little harder. 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 heal. Its tempo is split: a low initiative (32) is out-paced turn 1, but a higher SPD (34) grinds relentlessly after. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; 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, St. Johnswort swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 41 / 47 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 8 — as a soft herb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against almost anything younger.
As a perennial herb, St. Johnswort 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 St. Johnswort as a native buffer that heals through fights and projects its overshield from the bench, or as an invasive attacker whose higher ATK adds some bite — though it still wins by attrition, not force. Its resprout can steal a game when it fires. 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, relentless skirmisher that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 23 as a native and 26 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.