Melampyrum lineare
A native-only vascular parasite that plays as a defensive buffer.
The Cow wheat is a vascular parasite in Supplant. It is native to Eastern North America and Western North America and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.
Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Graft is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Parasitic Climax, unlocks at level 25: Everything the host had is now its own: heal 75% and +4 ATK. The advanced attack, Holoparasite Harvest, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Takes everything the host had.
Its starter is a utility opener that deals no direct damage; the advanced attack lands for about 43 at the snapshot level.
Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (13) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (34) decides every turn after. This one is slow off the mark but relentless once the fight settles — it usually loses turn 1 and then takes the tempo from turn 2 onward. See turn order for how the two interact.
It reads Haustorial Drain from level 1, and a second passive, Sun-siphon, stacks on at level 10.
Haustorial Drain. When this parasite is knocked out, its haustoria pull one last draw of HP from the enemy active — damage that bypasses the overshield entirely. It turns its own death into a parting blow.
Sun-siphon. When it cannot cover a move from its own Sun bar it siphons the shortfall from its benched allies' Sun. This is a taker's mechanic — it funds its attacks off your own team rather than buffing itself — and it arrives weak, strengthening only as it matures.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.
At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 10, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun and tempo pips of 13 initiative / 34 SPD. Its DEF sits in the soft-to-mid parasite band. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.
HP grows toward 190 while DEF settles in the soft-to-mid band (20). Retreat rises to 33 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.
Its category is off the succession wheel entirely, so it deals and takes neutral damage against every group — no type advantage in either direction. It lives or dies on raw stats and its kit, not the matchup chart.
Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. A parasite that turns its own death into damage. It is off the succession wheel and soft-to-mid in armor — a spoiler and collection piece rather than a front-line carry. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 10, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a 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.