Salvia lavanduloides
A native-only Perennial herb card with no armour that punishes attackers and gains attack power in long fights.
Lavender Leaf Sage is a Perennial herb card, native across eastern and western North America and South America, and listed as invasive nowhere — so it is native-only. It always plays the buffer role: a +15% health cushion and a bench overshield projected onto your active plant. See nativity and categories.
The starter attack, Rhizome Creep, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for 28. Creeps underground into the foe's back row.
The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, unlocks at level 25 and costs no Sun. Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe.
The advanced attack, Herbaceous Assault, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and lands for 30. A season's growth thrown at once — the foe wilts. A modest step up from the starter. See moves.
Bitter Principle arrives on the first riser at level 10 at full strength. When this card is struck, the attacker takes Wither and loses attack power for the rest of the fight — no turn or Sun spent.
Vernalization Memory stacks on at level 68, adding attack power from the third turn onward. It does nothing for the opening two turns, so it pairs naturally with the retaliation trait: both reward a card that stays in a long exchange rather than trading quickly.
The species record lists no toxicity and no trait keywords, so no poison rider applies. For field gear, survivability is everything — this card has essentially no armour and both its traits need it to still be alive. 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 20 ATK. Armour is 1, the lowest reading available. Retreat is a cheap 11 Sun. Opening tempo is 39 and sustained tempo is 40, both reasonable. See stats.
By level 100 health reaches 190 and attack 36, with armour only at 2. The soft-herb divergence in its clearest form: a large body with no plating at all. Retreat rises to 21 Sun and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor. Longer endgame fights do suit its turn-3 trait.
Perennial herb 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.
A grinder with no defence, which is an awkward combination. Both traits want long fights, and its complete lack of armour makes long fights hard to reach. Against opponents that chip rather than burst, the retaliation trait does real work and the turn-3 attack bonus arrives; against anything that hits hard, neither matters.
Being native-only, there is no aggressive version to fall back on. Treat it as a situational bench piece.
It is not eaten, so a soil amendment earns no matching fertiliser coins and instead banks the ×1.25 XP an inedible plant pays. 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.