Sterculia tragacantha
The Sterculia (Sterculia tragacantha) is a Broadleaf tree that plays as a defensive buffer where native and an attacker where invasive.
The Sterculia is African tragacanth, a tropical West African tree. In battle it plays as a Broadleaf tree. It is native to Africa, where it takes the defensive buffer role, and invasive in South America, where it becomes an attacker.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. The starter attack, Leaf Smother, is available from Level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing 26 as a native and 27 as an invasive. Its effect: Buries the foe under a canopy's worth of leaf — it weakens.
The free ability, Canopy Recruitment (Level 25), costs no Sun because it is once per battle: Pushes a sapling into the canopy: heal 35% and +3 ATK.
The advanced attack, Crown Shade (Level 40, 6 Sun), deals 34 native and 34 invasive: Casts deep shade that saps the foe. Most cards you meet are well below the Level 40 snapshot these numbers are read at, and unlock their kit slot by slot as they level.
This card actually keeps two always-on traits, drawn from its category pool with the rest discarded. From Level 10 it carries Buttress Roots, a buttressed trunk that cannot be Bound. From Level 68 a second, different trait stacks on top: Heartwood Core, extra DEF that scales up with the card's level, so its core hardens as it ages. Both are working traits — there are no inert abilities in the game — and each arrives at full strength on the riser shown, so for much of the card's life it plays with only the earlier of the two.
It carries no Toxin or Thorns trait, so it inflicts no contact recoil on an attacker. A Cal-Mag (Ca/Mg) amendment stacks flat DEF onto an already-high wall for a native anchor; an invasive copy is better fed an economy fertilizer to bank coins or XP. Its edible leaf means the matching Nitrogen (N) fertilizer pays bonus coins (see Gameplay uses). See field gear for the full item list and nativity for how region sets its role.
Read at the Level 40 snapshot, its DEF is 19 — the hardest armor band in the game, set by its battle category and real wood density, so a mature trunk genuinely stands as an armored wall. It retreats for 12 Sun. Turn 1 is ordered by its initiative (50) and every turn after by its SPD (52). Its opening and sustained tempo sit close together, so its turn order holds roughly steady through a fight. By nativity it splits two ways. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion (103 HP against 89 invasive) and, from the bench, projects an HP overshield bar onto your active. As an invasive its aggression is built from how widely it spreads plus an introduced-range term — compare 23 native ATK against 24 invasive — and it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. The overshield is a bench-built extra ring: up to four green HP bars from benched natives (drained by direct damage first, but bypassed by poison, recoil and splash) and up to two gold Sun bars from benched Network trees.
By Level 100 it has hardened into that wall: DEF climbs to 41 as wood density asserts itself and HP swells toward 190, while its retreat cost rises to 23 Sun — an old tree is deeply rooted and slow to pull back. Its tempo, already unhurried, has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so it leads no exchange late; it wins by absorbing and outlasting.
It is a Competitor on the succession wheel: it crowds out Ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs), hitting them for 1.5× and resisting their blows, but is outlasted by Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes), which turn its 1.5× disadvantage against it. The Weird categories (carrion-aroids, carnivores, mycotrophs and vascular parasites) sit off the wheel and trade neutrally with it. See weaknesses & resistances and categories.
A broadleaf-tree wall with edible leaves. Native it is a durable buffer; invasive it hits a little harder but its damage is still modest. Use it to hold the front and feed the bench, not to finish. Because its edible part is a resolved leaf, feeding it Nitrogen pays ×1.25 coins; any other nutrient banks ×1.25 XP instead. On the total-power curve its crossover falls around Level 32 native and 35 invasive: below it the card leans on speed, above it on bulk and attack. It only grows stronger with level, 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.