Lotus tenuis
A fragile legume herb that poisons on contact and clings to one lethal hit, sometimes arriving in the wild with free nitrogen.
Narrowleaf bird's foot trefoil is a low Perennial herb that fights as a fragile poisoner: sharp damage for a herb, a lingering poison bite, and almost no armor. It is native to Africa, East Asia, and Europe and invasive across Eastern and Western North America, Oceania, South America, and South Asia, so the arena can cast it either way — a native buffer or, more usefully, an invasive attacker. It is a glass card that trades hits for damage.
Its starter attack, Taproot Anchor, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and lands about 30 damage native / 32 invasive, leaving the target poisoned so it keeps bleeding health. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, arrives at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. The advanced attack, Deep Root Strike, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (43 native / 45 invasive) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your trefoil sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See Moves and statuses.
It keeps one always-on trait: resprout. Drawing only one eligible trait, resprout arrives at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve. See Abilities.
It carries no special trait keywords — its poison comes from its starter attack, not a contact trait — and it is non-toxic to the touch, so hitting it causes no recoil. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear barely offsets its fragility; as an invasive, go all-in on offense.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive and 26 / 33 ATK — a solid jump into invasive, where its damage matters. DEF is just 2, at the floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (36) and every turn after on its SPD (36), which match. Retreat costs 13 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield for your active; as an invasive it draws its higher ATK from traits but pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. Link Stats.
Matured to level 100, it swells to 190 / 165 HP and 48 / 64 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 4 — as a soft herb it gains health and never armor, staying a glass cannon that any real hitter can drop. Retreat rises to 26 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last. Maturing buys HP and bigger hits, never survivability.
As a perennial herb it 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, but 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 it as an invasive poisoner: open with the toxic hit, let the lingering damage stack, and count resprout for one bonus turn — but keep it out of straight trades, because it dies to a single solid blow. As a native it is a weak buffer, better benched. It is inedible, so any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. As a legume it also carries a wild bonus: about one in four caught in the wild arrives with a free Nitrogen amendment, a small economy head start that decomposes after a month. It fights as a fast, even-tempo skirmisher and leans on HP as it levels, crossing over around level 24 as a native (about 26 as an invasive) — always stronger at higher levels, so keep leveling it.
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.