casting focused druid?

[TheThan]

Here’s the deal, we are on the verge of loosing two of our seven players and pick up a new one.
This new player is used to playing with power games (we already have one in our group already). Now our new player has decided that she wants to play a druid, but she doesn’t want to play a wild shape druidzilla. She wants to play the class as a pure caster.

Ok I don’t have any real problems with that, however she is the girlfriend (or EX girlfriend, not entirely sure which) of the power gamer we already have. So they hold a lot of influence and sway with each other. So our power gaming friend is trying to find a prestige class for her as of yet built druid. He’s already brought up the planar shepherd, which I quickly shot down. (Thinking of which I don’t recall what book the planar shepherd is in).

So my question is does the playground here have any ideas on a decent PRC for a casting focused druid that isn’t OP. The only one I’ve come up with that’s thematic, cool and not terribly over or under powered is the stormlord.

[Haberdashery]

Off the top of my head there's the Verdant Lord, in Masters of the Wild. It is 3.0, but it's kinda neat. You become a plant creature at the end, and all that entails. I still wouldn't call it very powerful, but it's not bad.

Otherwise I'd have to really think, I know there's the Holt Warden in Complete Champion, but the fluff of that one always kinda put me off. Druid hippies. All it just makes me think of is a smelly druid.

EDIT: Ooh wait! Moonspeaker is awesome if she's playing a shifter. That's in Races of Eberron. That's like, the one class that makes me like the shifter race as a whole.

[Toliudar]

If she really wants to play a caster-focused druid, Spirit Shaman may in fact be an even better base class for her.

Divine Disciple (Players Guide to Faerun) kind of works.
Contemplative and Divine Oracle (ComDiv) have some nice goodies.

[Emmerask]

Spirit Shaman has the druid spelllist and some nice features for casting his spirit guide can concentrate on spells for him (guide magic).for example.

[Sallera]

I've played a Stormlord druid before; they're a lot of fun and quite flavorful, but if she's focusing on power, it's not going to help a caster much. It does make for quite a nice wildshape-free druid, but the prerequisite feats, and the fact that druids aren't even proficient in javelins, would probably make it quite unappetizing to a powergamer.

[Gametime]

I'll throw in another vote for the Spirit Shaman; most of their class abilities are actually really lame, unless you're focusing on "spirits" for your monsters, but the ability to not concentrate on spells is potentially very powerful. Also, I absolutely love their spellcasting mechanic: spontaneous casting with the ability to change your spells known every day. Awesome.

[Telonius]

Is there a particular reason she wants to play a Druid instead of (for instance) a Cleric of Obad-Hai, moving into Thaumaturgist?

[TheThan]

Is there a particular reason she wants to play a Druid instead of (for instance) a Cleric of Obad-Hai, moving into Thaumaturgist?

honestly i don't know, this information was given to me by our powergamey friend. so as to why? not a clue.

we already have a shape shift variant druid who's essentally our tank.
our party is crazy: shape change druid, sorcerer, cleric, duskblade/swordsage, rogue, bard, beguiler, swordsage.
as you can see, not only are we all casters, we're also a quite large party.