Potentilla verna
A native-only perennial herb that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Spring cinquefoil is a perennial herb in Supplant. It is native to Europe 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. Steady Growth is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, unlocks at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. The advanced attack, Deep Root Strike, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Draws on deep roots for a heavy blow.
Its attacks land for about 34 (starter) and 42 (advanced) at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (40) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (36) 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 reads Thorns from level 10, and a second passive, Resprout, stacks on at level 68.
Thorns. Every attacker that lands a damaging hit on it takes flat recoil off its own HP, and a multi-hit attack eats that recoil once per hit. It fires independently and stacks with any chemical recoil.
Resprout. A 60% chance to survive one otherwise-lethal hit and cling on at roughly a quarter of its HP. It is a coin-flip-plus reprieve, not a guarantee — useful, but you cannot build around it landing.
It carries thorns, so any attacker that hits it pays contact recoil (see Abilities); an armature rating is what sets that thorn damage. 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 2, with a retreat cost of 14 Sun and tempo pips of 40 initiative / 36 SPD. Its DEF sits low, in the soft-herb band. 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.
Biomass HP swells toward 190, but its armor barely leaves the soft band (4) — a bigger body, not a tougher one. Retreat rises to 28 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. This is a soft-bodied herb: low armor, modest HP. It is more a collection piece and a coin/level earner than a battle carry, and it wants bench support to do real work. 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 27, 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.