Perilla frutescens
A low, self-healing herb that clings to life and can play either arena role - an Asian native or a North American and European invader.
Perilla is a low Perennial herb that fights as a durable, self-healing staller: cheap hits, modest damage, and a habit of mending itself mid-fight. It is native to East Asia, Oceania, and South Asia, and invasive across Europe and Eastern North America, so the arena can cast it either way - as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a serviceable, unspectacular card that wants a stronger hitter beside it.
Its starter attack, Herbal Draught, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 29 damage as a native and 32 as an invasive - a plain strike with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Alkaloid Reservoir, comes in at level 25: Empties a season of alkaloids into the foe — saturating Poison. The advanced attack, Taproot Canal, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 native / 30 invasive) and mends the plant as it lands. Note that most of your perillas sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn - it wins by outlasting. See Moves.
Perilla 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 fires 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 rather than a guarantee. See Abilities.
Perilla carries no special trait keywords - no thorns, no toxin, no spore chemistry - so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic, so it shows no hazard ring and never poisons on contact. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, general defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment for a little extra DEF) suits its stalling game; as an invasive, lean into offense.
At level 40 perilla reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 33 invasive - the invasive edge is real here, native ATK 23 climbing to invasive ATK 32. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is a slow starter and faster cruiser: turn 1 runs on its initiative (35), where it is out-paced, and every turn after on its SPD (36), where it grinds relentlessly. Retreat costs 11 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, perilla swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 41 / 67 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 2 - as a soft herb it gains bulk in health, never 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 perilla acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, perilla is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and is struck for only x0.667 by them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which hit 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 perilla as a cheap, self-healing filler that trades evenly and buys time. As a native it is a decent buffer - the HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile hitter survive - while as an invasive its middling ATK makes it more of a persistent nuisance than a finisher. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady growth investment rather than an earner. It fights as a slow-opening skirmisher that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 24 as a native and 26 as an invasive - it is always stronger at higher levels, so 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.