Spiraea tomentosa
A thorny shrub that opens slow but grinds relentlessly, playing either an armored Eastern North American native or an invasive attacker.
Steeplebush is a woody Shrub that fights as a slow-building bruiser: it is out-paced early but keeps hitting once a fight settles in, and its thorns make it costly to attack. It is native to Eastern North America and invasive across Europe and Western North America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer with a real cushion, or as an invasive attacker. It is a serviceable mid-tier card rather than a standout, best on a bench beside a heavier hitter.
Its starter attack, Snarl, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 30 damage as a native and 31 as an invasive — a plain hit with no rider. The free once-per-battle ability, Bramble Barrier, comes in at level 25: A wall of thorns — the foe withers against it. It sharpens the plant's own attack for the exchanges that follow. The advanced attack, Blackthorn Barrage, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (43 native / 44 invasive) and pins the target so it cannot retreat. Most of your steeplebush sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn; see Moves.
Steeplebush keeps a single always-on trait: Thorns. It draws only one eligible trait, and Thorns arrives at full strength on the level 10 riser (it does not come in weak), staying on from then. Thorns returns a bite of damage to any attacker that strikes it in close contact, so opponents pay a small toll every time they hit. See Abilities.
Steeplebush carries the thorns keyword, which drives the contact recoil described above. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Non-toxic: it has no contact poison and no poison rider, so beyond the thorns nothing extra punishes an attacker. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment) suits its grinding game; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 steeplebush reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 25 native versus 29 invasive — native ATK 25 rises to invasive ATK 31, a modest but real edge. DEF is 12, in the shrub band, which gives it a genuine cushion where soft herbs have none. Its tempo is a slow start and a faster cruise: turn 1 runs on its initiative (20) and every turn after on its higher SPD (35), so it is out-paced off the mark but relentless afterward. Retreat costs 14 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, steeplebush swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 45 / 56 ATK, and its DEF climbs to 24 — as a shrub it earns moderate armor, better than any herb but short of a true tree wall. Retreat rises to 28 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature steeplebush acts last against almost anything young. Maturing buys durability at the cost of ever going first.
As a shrub, steeplebush is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play steeplebush as a native wall: the DEF band, the HP cushion, the bench overshield and the thorns recoil together make it awkward to remove, and its pin locks a wounded target in place. As an invasive its ATK edge lets it grind an opponent down, though the bench self-damage means you do not want it as your only attacker. Its value is economic too: it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 14 as a native (around 16 as an invasive), then its bulk takes over — so there is never a reason to hold it back.
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.