Viburnum prunifolium
A soft, self-healing native perennial herb from Eastern North America - a fragile buffer with no invasive form.
Black-haw viburnum is a low Perennial herb that fights as a self-healing staller with almost no armor. It is native to Eastern North America, and there is no invasive version, so it only ever plays as a native buffer for your bench. It is a soft, weak card: it survives by mending rather than by trading blows, and it wants a real hitter to protect.
Its starter attack, Stolon Reach, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun for about 32 damage - a plain hit. The free once-per-battle ability, Allelochemical Priming, arrives at level 25: Primes root chemistry — Poison the foe. It restores health mid-fight. The advanced attack, Alkaloid Ambush, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (24 damage) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your viburnums sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. None of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn out of order. See Moves.
Viburnum keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout arrives 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. See Abilities.
Viburnum carries no special trait keywords, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. It is non-toxic, with no hazard ring. As a native it wants defensive field gear - a Cloche or a small DEF amendment - to prop up its stalling game.
At level 40 viburnum reads 103 HP with 25 ATK; there is no invasive card, so it only ever fights as a native. DEF is just 2, at the very bottom of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with essentially no armor. Its tempo is even: turn 1 runs on its initiative (21) and every turn after on its SPD (21), which sit at 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. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, viburnum swells to 190 HP, and its ATK reaches 44, but its DEF barely moves to 3 - as a soft herb it gains health and almost no armor, so it stays fragile against 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 younger. Maturing buys HP and a firmer Resprout, nothing more.
As a perennial herb, viburnum 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, while Specialist plants (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes) strike it for x1.5 and resist its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the trade is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play viburnum as a cheap, self-healing buffer. Its HP cushion and bench overshield can keep a fragile hitter alive, but its own attack is weak and its armor is nearly nonexistent, so it is support only - it will not win a straight fight. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks x1.25 XP rather than coins, making it a low-cost leveling target. It plays as an even-tempo skirmisher early and leans on its bulk as it grows, crossing over around level 8; higher levels only raise its 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.