Iris ensata
A water iris that plays either role — an East and South Asian native buffer or a European and Eastern North American invader — poisoning on its opener and mending mid-fight.
Beaked Iris is a water Bulb that fights as a poisoning skirmisher with a heal: it poisons on its opening hit, mends itself mid-fight, and borrows armor from your bench. It is native to East and South Asia and invasive across Europe and Eastern North America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. Its own armor is thin, so it wins by chip damage and staying power, not by soaking hits.
Its starter attack, Shoot, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 40 damage as a native and 42 as an invasive, and leaving the target poisoned. The free once-per-battle ability, Storage Climax, arrives at level 25: Everything the season banked, at once: heal 40%, and the foe stalls. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Spring Burst, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun, dealing about 50 damage as a native and 52 as an invasive. Most of your iris sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Beaked Iris keeps two always-on traits. Duff Stuff arrives on the level 10 riser: while it is your active plant, its effective DEF rises by half the summed DEF of your alive benched ruderals — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — recomputed live, so the bonus fades as those allies faint, while the donors keep their own DEF. It is a real, always-on defence, not a chance effect. Resprout arrives later, on the level 68 riser: it lets iris 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 lucky reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Beaked Iris is non-toxic — it has no Toxin trait, so striking it does not poison the attacker and there is no contact recoil; the poison in the arena comes from its own opening move, not from touching it. 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 iris reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 22 native versus 27 invasive — the invasive gap is real, though its raw attack stays modest. DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the bulb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor and relies on Duff Stuff, its heal, and its bench to firm up. Its tempo is lopsided: turn 1 runs on a low initiative (32), so it is out-paced off the mark, but every turn after runs on a higher SPD (34), so it settles into a relentless cruiser. 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, iris swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 38 / 51 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft bulb it buys bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays exposed to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature iris acts last against almost anything younger.
As a ruderal bulb, Beaked Iris sits in the Ruderal succession group. It hits Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, trees, vines), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Ruderals and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Beaked Iris two ways. As a native it is a buffer: keep other ruderals benched so Duff Stuff can prop up its armor, poison the enemy active on the way in, and mend through the exchange while its HP cushion and overshield support your team. As an invasive it is an attacker: its higher ATK (27 versus 22 native), its opening poison, and its self-heal let it grind, though it pays self-damage to its own bench on each hit and hands the enemy 2 prizes if it falls. On economy, iris is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as a slow-starting cruiser 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.