Salvia apiana
A native-only Shrub card whose level-68 riser delivers nothing that works, leaving it with one conditional armour trait.
White Sage is a Shrub card, native to western North America and listed as invasive nowhere, which makes it native-only. It always plays the buffer role: a +15% health cushion and a bench overshield projected onto your active plant. There is no attacker version. See nativity and categories.
The starter attack, Chipmunk Horde, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for 24. Sends the hoarders through the foe's whole bench.
The free once-per-battle ability, Facilitation, unlocks at level 25 and costs no Sun. Shelters its own and starves the rest: heal 50%, and the foe's bench withers.
The advanced attack, Thorn in the Side, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and lands for 29. A thorn that festers — Poison the foe. A modest step up from the starter. See moves.
Marcescence arrives on the first riser at level 10 and adds armour while the card is below half health. It does nothing while the plant is healthy and switches on once it starts losing, which makes it a comeback trait rather than a standing bonus.
The second riser delivers nothing that works. The trait this card draws at level 68 is one of the entries in the game that has no effect in play, so unlike most cards, reaching level 68 does not give this one a new always-on ability. That is worth knowing before you invest levels expecting a second trait — the card you have at level 10 is essentially the card you keep.
The species record lists no toxicity and no trait keywords, so no poison rider applies. For field gear, gear that keeps it alive inside the low-health window is where its one trait lives. Its growth habit is not vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte, so a Moss Pole does not apply.
At level 40 the native side reads 103 HP and 16 ATK. The attack stat is low. Armour is 11, moderate for a shrub. Retreat is a cheap 11 Sun. Opening tempo is 35 and sustained tempo is 36, both middling. See stats.
By level 100 health reaches 190 and attack 28, with armour at 21. The shrub pattern: plating rises but not to a tree's level. Retreat rises to 21 Sun and the inverted tempo has fallen to its floor. Because the second riser is empty, maturing this card buys stats and nothing else.
Shrub is Competitor: strong into Ruderal — annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs — and weak to Specialist, meaning succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes. See weaknesses and resistances.
Be plain: this is a weak card. Low attack in the only role it has, one conditional armour trait, and a second riser that delivers nothing. It is not bad because of a tradeoff — it is simply thin.
What it can do is soak a few turns cheaply, with the below-half armour bonus making it slightly stickier once damaged, and a cheap retreat letting you recycle it. Most collections will keep it for the family tree.
It is not eaten, so a soil amendment earns no matching fertiliser coins and instead banks the ×1.25 XP an inedible plant pays — which, for a card with little battlefield use, is arguably its main job. See the battle lab.
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.