Prunus sargentii
A thorny, self-healing broadleaf tree that anchors a defensive team where it is native and grinds as a slow attacker where it is invasive.
Sargent's cherry is a broadleaf tree that plays as a thorny, self-healing bench card. It is native to East Asia, where it takes the buffer role, and invasive in eastern North America, where it becomes a modest attacker. Its defining feature is Thorns: anything that strikes it takes damage back.
Deathshadow unlocks at Lv 1 and costs 2 Sun for 25 native / 25 invasive, casting a shade that stops the foe from healing. The free once-per-battle ability Shade Tolerance (Lv 25) deals no damage: Waits out the dark: heal 40%, and the foe can't heal. — a self-heal that also denies the foe its own recovery. The advanced attack Leaf Me Tree (Lv 40, 6 Sun) lands 30 native / 30 invasive and heals it as it sheds and regrows. No move carries the initiative rider. Between the shade on Deathshadow and its two heals, it is built to win long fights.
Two always-on traits arrive far apart. Thorns comes in at Lv 10 and — because its curated armature matures at the same level — it hits full strength right away: every attacker that lands a damaging hit takes a flat chunk of HP back, and a multi-hit attack eats that recoil once per hit. Network stacks on at Lv 68: as a canopy tree it becomes a Sun carrier, projecting a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active while it sits on your bench (any nativity), and amplifying your native bench buffs.
It carries the Thorns keyword — see the recoil described above. A broadleaf tree is not a climber, so it takes no Moss Pole. Gear it as a native wall or an invasive racer per its role; Thorns pairs well with anything that keeps it in melee, since the recoil is free damage every time it is struck. See field gear.
At Lv 40 it reads 103 HP as a native versus 89 as an invasive, behind a firm 26 DEF. Its attack steps up only slightly with the invasive role — 19 ATK native to 19 invasive — so it is a modest attacker even at its most aggressive; its real edge is durability and recoil, not raw force. A native gets the +15% HP cushion and projects an overshield when benched; an invasive pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout. Its opening tempo 48 outruns its sustained tempo 33, so it is a quick starter that slows later. Retreat costs 15 Sun. See stats.
It hardens into a wall: HP climbs to 190 native / 165 invasive and DEF to 59 on wood density, while ATK only reaches 33 native / 34 invasive. Retreat rises to 30 Sun and its tempo pips fall to about a percent of cap. Maturing turns it into a durable, thorn-recoiling wall with a Sun overshield to hand out, at the cost of its early speed.
A broadleaf tree is a Competitor. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and resists them to x0.667, but loses to Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) at x1.5.
It is a strong defensive card: a firm DEF wall that heals itself twice over, denies the enemy's healing, punishes every attacker with Thorns recoil, and — once Network is online — hands your active a Sun overshield from the bench. Native, it anchors a defensive team; invasive, it is a slow-grind attacker rather than a burst threat, and the Faustian recoil asks for bench support. It is edible with the fruit as the eaten part, so feeding it Phosphorus (the fruit fertilizer) pays x1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks x1.25 XP instead. Its bulk keeps it power-favored from a low level — it fights as a heavyweight for most of its life, crossing over around Lv 25 as a native and Lv 28 as an invasive.
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.