Senecio ovatus
Wood Ragwort (Senecio ovatus) is a competitor perennial herb in Supplant — a native-only buffer whose game role is set out below.
Wood ragwort is a shade-tolerant perennial of European woodlands. In battle it is a Perennial herb — a Competitor on the succession chart. It is native to Europe and invasive nowhere, so it only ever plays the native buffer role — there is no attacker version of this card.
Its starter attack, Rhizome Creep, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 29 damage. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, unlocks at Lv 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. The advanced attack, Rhizome Lock (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 21.
From Lv 10 it carries Basal Rosette, a flat +3 DEF at all times. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Deep Taproot, so it cannot be Bound.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF, which a soft-bodied plant like this feels most. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 23 ATK with 1 DEF. As a native it carries a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. On defence, its DEF stays near the floor, so it relies on tempo and offence rather than soaking hits. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 49 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 37 — making it a quick starter that is out-paced as the fight goes on. Retreating it costs 12 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190, but its DEF barely leaves its band at 1 — a soft-category plant stays soft no matter how much biomass it puts on. Attack reaches 41, retreat rises to 23 Sun, and its inverted tempo has sunk to a sliver, so the speed it relied on young is spent. It grows bulkier but never becomes a wall.
On the succession chart a Perennial herb is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A native-only support herb: Basal Rosette firms it up, Deep Taproot makes it Bind-immune later, and its ability Poisons. Modest damage; play it as a chip-and-defend benchmate that banks XP. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 31, after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
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.