Penstemon hirsutus
A native-only perennial herb that opens fast with poison and can cling to life late, but stays soft throughout.
Hairy beardtongue is a low Perennial herb that fights as a fast-opening poisoner. In this game it exists only as a native — of Eastern North America — so you always play it as a native buffer for your bench; there is no invasive attacker version. It is a modest card: quick off the mark with a status bite, but soft and short on damage.
Its starter attack, Stolon Reach, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for about 31 as a native, leaving poison on the target. The free once-per-battle ability, Chronosequence, arrives at level 25: Time on its side: +3 ATK and speed, kept. — it mends the plant. The advanced attack, Alkaloid Ambush, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (24 native), a plain hit. Most of your beardtongues sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider.
Beardtongue keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout comes in 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. See Abilities.
Beardtongue carries no trait keywords, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its poison comes from a move, not the plant — it is non-toxic, with no contact hazard ring and no passive poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native support piece, defensive field gear helps it stay alive to keep buffing your bench.
At level 40 beardtongue reads 103 HP as a native, with ATK around 23. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on initiative (37) and every turn after on SPD (35), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced later. 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, beardtongue swells to 190 HP as a native and 42 ATK, but DEF only reaches 1 — a soft herb gains health and almost no armor, so it stays fragile against any real hitter. Retreat rises to 21 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature one acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, beardtongue is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, 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 beardtongue as a fast, cheap opener: lead turn 1, land poison, and let the tick add up while a heavier hitter sets up behind it. As a native buffer, its HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile ally survive, which is where most of its worth lies. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a fast skirmisher early and leans on its (modest) bulk later, crossing over around level 25 — always worth leveling.
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.