Iris xiphium
Spanish iris (Iris xiphium) is a ruderal bulb in Supplant — a native buffer and invasive attacker whose game role is set out below.
The Spanish iris is a spring-flowering bulbous iris. In battle it is a Bulb — a Ruderal on the succession chart. Native across Africa and Europe, it plays as a defensive buffer; where it has spread as an invasive into eastern North America, it turns attacker.
Its starter attack, Surprise, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 33 damage as a native and 35 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Vernalization Complete, unlocks at Lv 25: The cold requirement met at last: heal 60% and +5 ATK. The advanced attack, Split the Difference (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 46 native and 50 invasive.
Surprise carries the initiative rider. In a wild encounter that move takes hard priority and lands before the opponent regardless of either tempo stat (if both sides bring a rider, they cancel and normal turn order decides). In the arena it works differently: a rider strike does not go first, but if it scores a kill — the struck plant actually drops — its user seizes the turn and acts again, and the chain continues as long as it keeps finishing plants.
From Lv 10 it carries Spring Ephemeral Burst, +4 SPD for the first two turns before it eases off. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Resprout, a 60% chance (it triggers about three times in five) to cling on through one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter HP, once per battle.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF, which a soft-bodied plant like this feels most. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 20 ATK as a native, or 89 HP and 25 ATK as an invasive, with 2 DEF. As a native it adds a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it trades that for the higher attack ceiling and pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. On defence, its DEF stays near the floor, so it relies on tempo and offence rather than soaking hits. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 32 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 34 — making it steady in both the opening and the sustained phases of a fight. Retreating it costs 16 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 3 — a soft-category plant stays soft no matter how much biomass it puts on. Attack reaches 36, retreat rises to 33 Sun, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver, so the speed it relied on young is spent. It grows bulkier but never becomes a wall.
On the succession chart a Bulb is a Ruderal. Ruderal plants hit Specialist categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Competitor categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A fast, fragile opener: the initiative rider plus an early Speed burst lets it strike first, and its advanced attack hits hard, but its DEF never leaves the floor. Best as a glass-cannon racer that grabs the first exchange; as an invasive in eastern North America it gains a real attack step. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 24 (a little later as an invasive, around Lv 26), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.