Philodendron lupinum
A rainforest philodendron that Burns and Poisons from a self-heated body.
Philodendron lupinum is a carrion aroid that heats its own tissue to Burn the foe and layers on oxalate Poison. It is native to South America and invasive nowhere the game tracks. So it plays only as a native buffer.
Its kit unlocks in three steps, so most of the time you field it below the level where the whole thing is live. The starter attack, Tendril Whip, is available from level 1 for 2 Sun. It deals 31 damage. A lashing tendril.
At level 25 it gains a free, once-per-battle ability, Gap Colonizer: Races into a light gap: +4 ATK and speed, kept. It costs no Sun — its price is that you get one use per fight.
The advanced attack, Strangling Reach, arrives at level 40 for 6 Sun, dealing 26 damage. Tendrils reach past the front line to throttle the whole bench.
See Moves and Abilities for how the slots and Sun costs work.
A card keeps at most two always-on traits — drawn deterministically, with the rest of its category pool dropped for good. This one draws two, and they arrive at different levels:
Those are the only two it holds; everything else in its category's pool was passed over. See Abilities for the full trait list.
It carries no special keyword chips — it is not tagged toxic or thorned, and it is not a climber, so a Moss Pole does not fit it.
Soft-bodied cards like this one gain the most from a Calcium/Magnesium soil amendment, which adds flat DEF to a thin armor band. See Field gear for what fits.
Numbers here are read at level 40, where every slot is unlocked. It reads 6 DEF and retreats for 12 Sun.
Its opening initiative (37) and sustained Speed (38) are close, so it holds a steady tempo across the fight.
As a native it carries a +15% HP cushion (103 HP), and while it sits on your bench it projects a green HP overshield onto your active, sized by its rarity. It is invasive nowhere, so it never plays as an attacker — it is a buffer.
The overshield, the Sun economy and damage-as-a-ratio are explained on Stats.
By level 100 its biomass HP swells to 190, but its soft-bodied armor stays low at 10 DEF — leveling buys it bulk and attack (climbing to 25), not toughness. Retreat climbs to 23 Sun and its already-inverted tempo sinks toward its floor, so it is markedly slower old than young.
Its category, Vine, is in the Weird group, which sits off the succession wheel: it deals and takes neutral damage against every category, with no succession advantage or vulnerability either way.
The full wheel is on Weaknesses & resistances.
It is a status attacker rather than a bruiser. Its damage-over-time is its strength; its thin body is its weakness, so pair it with a wall.
It has no resolved edible part, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — treat it as a growth boost.
One note on leveling: it fights as a faster skirmisher until about level 27, after which its growing bulk and attack take over as the dominant edge. It is stronger overall at higher levels — turn order is only a small lever — 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.