Viburnum lantana
A plain non-toxic shrub that hardens when hurt and heals your bench on its knockout, playing either arena role.
Wayfaringtree is a Shrub that fights as a straightforward bruiser: it trades ordinary blows on middling shrub armor with no trick behind them. It is native to Africa and Europe and invasive across East Asia and both halves of North America, so the arena can field it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It is a plain card that relies entirely on its stats and moves.
Its starter attack, Hedge Hammer, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun, dealing about 32 damage as a native and 35 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Frugivore Pact, arrives at level 25: Trades fruit for carriage: +3 ATK, and the foe's whole bench sickens. It is a mid-fight mend. The advanced attack, Thicket, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (34 native / 38 invasive) and saps the target as it hits. Most of your wayfaringtree sit below level 40, where only the starter is unlocked. None of its moves carry an initiative rider. See Moves.
Wayfaringtree holds two always-on traits. Marcescence (level 10) hardens the shrub as it wears down: +4 DEF at half HP or below. Drupe Mast (level 68) makes its fall useful — its heavy fruiting heals all surviving allies 8% of their own max HP. See Abilities.
Wayfaringtree is non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider, so nothing punishes an attacker for striking it. Its habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear — a Cloche or a calcium/magnesium amendment — firms up its armor; as an invasive, offensive gear pushes its aggression. See statuses.
At level 40 wayfaringtree reads 103 HP native and 89 invasive, with ATK of 24 native versus 33 invasive — the invasive form hits meaningfully harder. DEF is 11, mid-range for the shrub band, firmer than a herb but no wall. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (21) and every turn after on its SPD (21), which match, 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, wayfaringtree swells to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 43 / 66 ATK, and its DEF firms to 23 — a solid shrub wall, though short of a tree's. Retreat rises to 26 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to about 1% of cap, so a mature bush acts last against almost anything younger.
As a shrub, wayfaringtree sits in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play wayfaringtree as a native buffer whose overshield supports your active, or as an invasive attacker whose higher ATK does honest work on the front line. It has no trait to swing a fight, so it lives and dies on its stats — a serviceable mid-weight body rather than a standout. On economy, it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster growth rather than coins. It plays as an even-tempo bruiser that leans harder on its bulk as it levels, crossing over around level 6 as a native and 8 as an invasive — but it is always stronger at higher levels, 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.