Viburnum setigerum
A soft shrub with sluggish tempo that hardens at low HP and feeds the bench on its knockout, playable as an East Asian native or an Eastern North American invader.
Tea viburnum is a light Shrub that fights as a modest attacker with thin armor and no special trick. It is native to East Asia and invasive in Eastern North America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. Honestly, its tempo is sluggish and its frame is soft, so it is more a collection piece than a centrepiece — but it hardens when hurt and feeds the bench on its knockout.
Its starter attack, Bramblemaze, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 27 damage as a native and 29 as an invasive — a straightforward strike. The free once-per-battle ability, Chaparral Climax, comes in at level 25: Owns the dry hillside: heal 60% and +4 ATK. The advanced attack, Coppice Comeback, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (22 native / 24 invasive) and pins the target in place. Most of your specimens sit below level 40, where only the starter is available, and none of its moves carry an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn.
Tea viburnum carries one trait per riser, and both lean on the same habit — this shrub hangs onto its leaves and its fruit. Marcescence (level 10) converts the retained foliage into +4 DEF at half HP or below. Drupe Mast (level 68) converts the fruit into a bench heal of 8% max HP each when the viburnum falls. See Abilities.
It carries no special trait keywords and, as a terrestrial shrub, is not eligible for a Moss Pole. It is non-toxic, so it shows no hazard ring and nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. As a native, general defensive field gear helps offset its thin armor; as an invasive, offensive gear at least puts its slightly higher ATK to use.
At level 40 it reads 103 HP as a native and 89 as an invasive, with ATK of 18 native versus 24 invasive — a modest invasive edge. DEF is 11, low in the shrub band, so it takes hits with little armor. Its tempo is even but slow: turn 1 runs on its initiative (20) and every turn after on its SPD (20), both the same and both low, so it usually acts last. 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, tea viburnum climbs to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 31 / 47 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 23 — as a soft shrub it firms up modestly and never becomes a true wall. Retreat rises to 25 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature specimen is slow and still fragile. Maturing buys health but little armor, which keeps it a collectible more than a contender.
As a shrub, tea viburnum is 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 hit it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
There is no strong competitive case for tea viburnum: soft armor and slow tempo make it a filler card at best — a native buffer that lends its bench overshield to a real hitter, or a weak invasive body — though its knockout does heal the bench. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward growth rather than coins. It fights as a slow skirmisher until about level 7 as a native (around level 9 as an invasive), after which its added health carries it a little further — leveling always improves its raw stats, so grow it if it appeals to you.
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.