Wollastonia biflora
A native-only Shrub card that gets tougher as it gets hurt and heals your bench when it finally falls.
Beach Sunflower is a Shrub card, native to Africa, East Asia, Oceania and South Asia, and listed as invasive nowhere β so it is native-only. It always plays the buffer role: a +15% health cushion and a bench overshield projected onto your active plant. There is no attacker version. See nativity and categories.
The starter attack, Bramble Lash, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for 35. A thorny lash. It is the card's hardest hit and its cheapest.
The free once-per-battle ability, Facilitation, unlocks at level 25 and costs no Sun. Shelters its own and starves the rest: heal 50%, and the foe's bench withers.
The advanced attack, Hedgerow Havoc, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun and lands for 27. The whole hedgerow comes down on the bench. It hits for well under the starter at three times the Sun cost, so take it for its effect only. See moves.
Marcescence arrives on the first riser at level 10 and adds armour β but only while the card is below half health. Dead leaves retained through winter, and the trait behaves that way: it does nothing while the card is healthy and switches on exactly when it starts losing. That makes it a genuine comeback trait rather than a flat bonus.
Drupe Mast stacks on at level 68. When this card is knocked out it heals your own bench, so its death is worth something to the rest of your board. Combined with Marcescence, the card is at its most useful in the second half of a fight.
The species record lists no toxicity and no trait keywords, so no poison rider applies. For field gear, gear that keeps it alive through the low-health window is unusually valuable, because that is where its armour trait lives. Its growth habit is not vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte, so a Moss Pole does not apply.
At level 40 the native side reads 103 HP and 26 ATK β a good attack stat for a support card. Armour is 10 before Marcescence is counted. Retreat is a cheap 12 Sun. Opening tempo is 41 and sustained tempo is 34, both decent. See stats.
By level 100 health reaches 190 and attack 48, with armour at 20. A shrub sits between the tree wall and the soft-herb pattern: plating rises, but not to a tree's level. Retreat rises to 23 Sun and the inverted tempo has fallen to its floor. The below-half armour bonus is worth more on a bigger health pool, since the window it applies to is longer.
Shrub is in the Competitor succession group: strong into Ruderal β annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs β and weak to Specialist, meaning succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes. See weaknesses and resistances.
A better card than it first looks. The starter attack is strong and cheap, the armour trait rewards being ground down rather than punishing it, and the level 68 death effect turns a knockout into a bench heal. Nothing about it is spectacular, but very little is wasted.
Play it into long fights and let it get low β that is when both traits are working. Lead with the starter attack and ignore the advanced slot for damage purposes.
It is edible and its economy group is leaf, so a nitrogen soil amendment pays it Γ1.25 coins. See the battle lab.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plantβs 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 β native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither β with the card at its crossover and fully grown at LvΒ 100.