Osmunda spectabilis
Flowering Fern (Osmunda spectabilis) is a specialist fern in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
The American royal fern is the New World counterpart of the royal fern, growing in wet woods and swamps. In battle it is a Fern — a Specialist on the succession chart. It is native to eastern North America, western North America and South America and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Frond Flail, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 44 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Understory Ecesis, unlocks at Lv 25: Takes the forest floor: heal 30%, and the foe can't heal. The advanced attack, Thiaminase Theft (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 28.
From Lv 10 it carries Circinate Vernation, +4 DEF once it falls below half HP as the coiled fiddlehead shields the growing tip. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Prothallial Reserve, a 30% chance to cling on through one otherwise-lethal hit at about 30% 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 28 ATK with 2 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. 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 51 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 34 — making it a quick starter that is out-paced as the fight goes on. 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 50, 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 Fern is a Specialist. Specialist plants hit Competitor categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Ruderal categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
It opens fast and its two-frond starter hits surprisingly hard, so it works as an aggressive native opener despite floor-level DEF. Its late revive is low-odds. Inedible, so it banks bonus XP rather than coins. 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 30, 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.