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A native-only Eastern North American herb that heals twice over and clings to life, built as a durable but low-damage buffer.
Purple bergamot is an upright Perennial herb that fights as a self-mending staller: two of its slots heal, and a survival trait gives it a chance to shrug off a killing blow. It is native to Eastern North America and has no invasive card, so it only ever plays as a native buffer — there is no attacker version. It is a modest card whose value is durability, not damage.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 34 damage — a plain hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, comes in at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. It mends the plant. The advanced attack, Deep Root Strike, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (42 native) and also heals as it strikes, so the plant can trade and top up at once. Most specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn; see Moves.
Purple bergamot keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws 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 fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Purple bergamot carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing extra punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider. As a native-only card, general defensive field gear such as a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment best supports its stalling role.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP as a native (the invasive figure 89 never applies, since no invasive card exists). ATK is 22 and native-only, so there is no attacker column to compare against. DEF is just 1, at the soft 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 sit at the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 11 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, purple bergamot reaches 190 HP native (invasive 165 unused) and 39 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health and almost none in armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 21 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature plant acts last against nearly anything young. Maturing buys HP and a stronger Resprout, never toughness.
As a perennial herb, purple bergamot is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play purple bergamot as a native buffer that refuses to die quickly: stack its two heals with the coin-flip Resprout to soak turns while a real attacker sets up behind it. Its own damage is low and even-tempo, so do not rely on it to close a game. Economically it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 25, then its bulk takes over — 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.