Salix humboldtiana
A broadleaf tree with real armor and a self-healing kit, playable as either a native wall or a light invasive attacker.
Humboldt's Willow is a broadleaf-tree: a bulky, armored card built around staying on the field and healing. It is native across eastern and western North America and South America, where it plays the native buffer/wall role, and it is invasive in Oceania, where it becomes a light attacker. Both roles are worth planning for.
The starter attack, Limb Lash, is available from Lv 1, costs 2 Sun, and deals 40 damage as a native or 40 as an invasive: Two lashes from a heavy limb.
The free once-per-battle ability, Shade Tolerance, unlocks at Lv 25 and deals no damage — Waits out the dark: heal 40%, and the foe can't heal. Denying the foe its own healing while topping yourself up is strong on a card that already wins long fights.
The advanced attack, Heartwood, unlocks at Lv 40, costs 6 Sun, and deals 32 native / 32 invasive damage while healing you: Draws on the heartwood — strike and heal 20%. No move here carries an initiative rider.
From its trait schedule, this tree keeps two always-on traits: Buttress Roots from Lv 10, and Epicormic Buds stacking on at Lv 68. Buttress Roots is an immunity: its wide flare roots mean it cannot be Bound, so it can never be held in place and can always retreat. Epicormic Buds is a revive trait, not a sustain heal: when a hit would otherwise knock it out, dormant buds under the bark give it roughly a 35% chance to cling on at about 35% HP instead of fainting — its own seeded save, separate from the 60% sustain rolls. Notably it does not keep the tree pair's Network Sun-overshield or the Mycorrhiza bench heal — its risers went to these two traits instead. Its toxicity is none and it holds no Toxin trait, so it does not poison melee attackers.
This is an unarmed, non-toxic tree, so an attacker takes no contact recoil from it. For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment stacks flat DEF onto its already-firm tree armor to push it further toward a wall; the same pick serves in both the native and invasive roles. It is not a climber, so no Moss Pole.
At the snapshot level of 40, DEF reads 18 — genuine tree armor, far above a weed's. Native HP is 103 (with the 15% native cushion) versus 89 as an invasive; ATK steps up only slightly from 25 native to 25 invasive, so its introduced-range term is modest and it is not a hard hitter either way. As an invasive it also pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when it is knocked out. Its opening tempo 18 is much lower than its sustained tempo 48: a slow starter that becomes a solid cruiser. Retreat costs 16 Sun. See stats.
By the endgame HP reaches 190 native / 165 invasive and DEF hardens to 40 — a real wall, the payoff of the tree category. Retreat rises to 33 Sun as it roots in, and its inverted tempo has fallen to roughly its floor, so it opens dead last but shrugs off far more than it did at Lv 40.
As a broadleaf tree it is a Competitor: strong (×1.5) into Ruderal cards and resisted (×1.5 against it) by Specialists. See weaknesses & resistances.
Native, it is a durable wall that heals through its ability and its healing advanced attack, ideal for outlasting a slower opponent. Invasive, it is a light attacker whose value is still mostly its bulk, not its damage — the ATK bump is small and the bench self-damage is a real cost, so weigh it against just playing the native. It is not edible, so fertilizer banks ×1.25 XP. Its native crossover sits around Lv 19 and its invasive one around Lv 22; below those levels it leans on tempo, above them on raw power.
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.