Populus heterophylla
A native-only broadleaf tree that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Swamp poplar is a broadleaf tree in Supplant. It is native to Eastern North America and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Leaf Smother is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Stand Replacement, unlocks at level 25: A fire that takes the whole stand — the foe burns, and so do its neighbours. The advanced attack, Barking Mad, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Sheds bark like shrapnel — the foe wilts.
Its attacks land for about 26 (starter) and 37 (advanced) at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (56) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (37) decides every turn after. This one is the quicker starter — it tends to land the opening blow on turn 1, then cede the pace as the fight wears on. See turn order for how the two interact.
It reads Mycorrhiza from level 10, and a second passive, Network, stacks on at level 68.
Mycorrhiza. A 60% chance each turn to heal a benched ally through the shared root network. Like Network, it is a support effect that pays off from the bench rather than in a duel — and because it only lands about three times in five, treat it as a bonus, not a plan.
Network. While this plant sits on your bench it lends the active card a gold Sun-overshield bar — a reserve that is only spent once the base Sun bar runs dry. It is a support perk it plays for any active, native or invasive, so its real value shows when it is benched, not fighting.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 17, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun and tempo pips of 56 initiative / 37 SPD. Its DEF is tree-grade — a real wall that climbs with level, so a hit is blunted by diminishing armor (ATK ÷ (ATK + DEF)), though poison ignores plating entirely. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
It climbs into a wall: DEF hardens to about 36 on its wood density while HP swells toward 190. This is where a tree earns its keep. Retreat rises to 33 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
In the succession wheel it is a Competitor. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. Trees are the heavyweights of Supplant. Behind a wall of DEF and deep HP this is a genuinely strong card — a front-line wall on defence and a hard-hitting bruiser on the attack. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 31, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a 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.