Prunus cerasus
A thorned cherry tree that splashes the enemy bench, walls up as a native, and hits far harder as an invader.
Sour cherry is a Broadleaf tree that fights as a defensive tree with a thorny edge: solid armor, thorns that punish melee, and an opening hit that reaches the enemy bench. It is native to Europe and invasive across Africa, East Asia, Eastern and Western North America, Oceania, South America, and South Asia, so the arena can field it either way — a native buffer or a much sharper invasive attacker. It is a balanced card that swings from wall to threat depending on nativity.
Its starter attack, Leaf Smother, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and lands about 23 damage native / 29 invasive, splashing a little onto the opposing bench as well as the active target. The free once-per-battle ability, Leaf Litter, arrives at level 25: Buries the ground in litter — the foe's whole bench withers. The advanced attack, Transpiration Drain, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (26 native / 32 invasive) and saps the target as it strikes. Most of your sour cherries sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. See Moves.
Sour cherry keeps two always-on traits, one per riser. Thorns arrives on the level 10 riser at full strength and returns a portion of damage to any plant that hits it in melee. Mycorrhiza arrives on the level 68 riser and heals a benched ally, though it fires only about 60% of the time. Together they give it both a deterrent and a bench mend. See Abilities.
Its trait keyword is thorns, the contact recoil above. It is non-toxic, so an attacker takes no poison from it — but the thorns still bite back on melee, so it is never a free target. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear stacks onto its armor; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its much larger attack.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive and 15 / 31 ATK — a large gap, so the native form is a mild wall while the invasive form hits nearly twice as hard. DEF is 26, comfortably within the broadleaf-tree band. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on its initiative (42) and later turns on its SPD (28), so it leads early then slows. Retreat costs 14 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield for your active; as an invasive it draws its higher ATK from traits but pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. Link Stats.
Matured to level 100, Sour cherry becomes an armored wall: 190 / 165 HP, 25 / 64 ATK, and DEF reaching 59 — as a tree it turns late growth into armor as well as health, and its thorns keep chipping attackers. Retreat rises to 29 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature tree acts last. Maturing buys a punishing wall at the cost of speed.
As a broadleaf tree it sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them, but it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play Sour cherry as an invasive attacker, where its much higher damage plus thorns makes it a real threat, or as a native wall that chips the bench on the way in and deters melee. Its bench-splash opener is handy for softening an enemy back line. Economically it is an edible fruit plant, so feeding it Phosphorus pays ×1.25 coins (any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead), making it a dependable coin-earner. It opens quick and hardens into a wall as it grows, crossing over around level 21 as a native (about 22 as an invasive) — always stronger at higher levels, so keep leveling it.
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.