Viburnum carlesii
A durable, self-healing shrubby herb that plays either arena role — a native buffer out of East Asia or an invader across Europe and eastern North America.
Korean Spice Viburnum is a hardy Perennial herb that fights as a patient staller: cheap attacks, modest damage, and a knack for hanging on. It is native to East Asia and invasive across Europe and Eastern North America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer that shields your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a solid, unflashy card rather than a standout: a reliable trader that wants a heavier hitter beside it.
Its starter attack, Volatile Oils, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 24 damage as a native and 25 as an invasive; it also leaves a lingering poison on whatever it hits, so it keeps chipping between your turns. The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, arrives at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. The advanced attack, Herbaceous Assault, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (29 native / 30 invasive) and is a straightforward, harder hit. Most of your viburnums sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn — it wins by outlasting. See Moves.
It keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout comes in at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it triggers only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve, not a guarantee. See Abilities.
It carries no special trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic: there is no contact recoil and no poison rider baked into the plant itself. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear (a Cloche, a Ca/Mg amendment for a little extra DEF) suits its stalling game; as an invasive, lean into offense to make its aggression count.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 17 native versus 20 invasive — the invasive edge is real but modest. DEF is just 2, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (21) and every turn after on its SPD (21), both the same value, so it is neither a fast opener nor a fast cruiser. Retreat costs 13 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, it swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 30 / 36 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 3 — as a soft herb it gains bulk in health, never armor, so it stays vulnerable to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 26 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature viburnum acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb it sits 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 it as a cheap, self-healing trader that buys time. As a native it is a decent buffer — the HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile hitter survive — while as an invasive its aggression is only middling, so it works better as support than as a finisher. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a steady leveling project instead of a coin earner. It fights as an even-tempo skirmisher early and leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 9 — but it is always stronger at higher levels in raw stats, so there is no 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.