Vinca minor
A low, mildly toxic groundcover that poisons on contact and chips the enemy bench late — a European native or an eastern North American invader.
Common periwinkle is a low, spreading Perennial herb that fights as a mild-poison groundcover: cheap attacks, a light contact hazard, and a bit of late bench chip. It is native to Europe and invasive across Eastern North America, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer for your bench or as an invasive attacker. It is a modest card that trades on nuisance value rather than raw power.
Its starter attack, Steady Growth, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 34 damage as a native and 38 as an invasive, and it leaves the target Poisoned (see statuses). The free once-per-battle ability, Autogenic Reaction, comes in at level 25: Remakes its own ground: +6 ATK and heal 25%. It mends the plant. The advanced attack, Self-Medicate, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (29 native / 33 invasive) as a plain, harder hit. Most of your periwinkle sit well below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider.
Periwinkle keeps a single always-on trait: Spore Drift. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Spore Drift arrives on the level 68 riser and chips the enemy bench each turn through dispersal. It works from level 68 on with no half-strength phase and no coin-flip. See Abilities.
Periwinkle holds the Toxin trait at the mild tier: striking it Poisons the attacker, and that recoil fires in player-versus-player (PvP) too. Sulfur soil does not neutralize it, though a Cloche-warded attacker absorbs it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native, defensive field gear suits its groundcover role; as an invasive, offensive gear makes its aggression count.
At level 40 periwinkle reads 103 HP native / 89 invasive, with ATK of 23 native versus 35 invasive — a large invasive jump. DEF is just 1, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it has almost no armor. Its tempo is a slow starter but a faster cruiser: turn 1 runs on its initiative (23) and every turn after on its SPD (38), so it is out-paced early and relentless later. Retreat costs 12 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and a benched HP overshield for 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, periwinkle climbs to 190 HP native / 165 invasive and 42 / 72 ATK, but its DEF only reaches 1 — a soft herb gains bulk in health and never in armor, so it stays fragile to any real hitter. Retreat rises to 22 Sun, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature periwinkle acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, periwinkle is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs) for ×1.5 and is hit for only ×0.667 by 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 periwinkle as a low-cost nuisance that poisons on contact and nibbles the enemy bench once it matures. As a native it is a light buffer; as an invasive its bigger ATK makes it a passable racer, though it stays fragile. It is inedible, so feeding it any nutrient banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 19, after which its growing HP begins to carry it, so there is no reason to hold it back from leveling.
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.