Portulacaria afra
A succulent that buffers on its native turf and attacks where it is invasive.
The Elephant bush is a succulent in Supplant. It is native to Africa and invasive in Europe, so it can take whichever role the arena hands it — a defensive buffer on its home turf, or an aggressive attacker where it counts as an introduced weed.
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. Dryground is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Desert Pavement, unlocks at level 25: Bakes the ground to stone — the foe stalls and withers. The advanced attack, Prickly Situation, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Leaves the foe full of irritant spines.
As a native its attacks land for about 27 (starter) and 30 (advanced); as an invasive those rise to 29 and 31 as the introduced-range aggression matures.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (32) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (34) decides every turn after. The two are close on this card, so it neither dominates nor loses the tempo battle outright. See turn order for how the two interact.
It has a single eligible passive, Photosynthesis, which arrives at half strength on its level 10 riser and matures at level 68 — a real difference for most of the card's life.
Photosynthesis. A 60% chance to heal itself in sunny weather — reliable-ish grind, but weather-dependent and never guaranteed.
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. Played native, favor defensive gear; played invasive, favor anything that pushes its attack.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 2, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun and tempo pips of 32 initiative / 34 SPD. Its DEF sits at the succulent floor: this is a high-HP, thin-plate card, and poison or a big attacker cuts straight through. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active. As an invasive its ATK rises toward 22 (against 19 native), and it pays "Faustian" self-damage to its own bench on every damaging hit it lands. 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.
Classic succulent divergence: HP balloons toward 190 while DEF stays near the floor (3). Huge, and still soft. 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 Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.
Play it native as a defensive buffer — the HP cushion and bench overshield make it a body that protects the rest of your team. Play it invasive as an attacker, remembering it concedes 2 prizes on a knockout and bleeds its own bench with Faustian self-damage each hit. All water and no armor: big HP but near-zero DEF. Its 60% heals let it grind out attrition, yet poison and heavy hitters cut straight through its thin plating. A slow attrition card, not a bruiser. It is edible (the game tags the leaf as the eaten part), so feeding it the matching Nitrogen fertilizer pays ×1.25 coins — a steady earner between battles; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. 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 24, 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.