A couple of my latest pieces

It is a challenge to know what is/isn't Texas petrified wood Henry. Sometimes a given rock will reveal only a small section of wood and the other 90% is replacements. Texas palm behaves the same way.
It is also tricky to know if it is wood/fern/cycad/palm-like or hundreds of varieties of vascular/dicot/monocot and wood like petrifications.
It is also tricky to know if it was silicified by volcanic ash or diatomaceous rich limestone sources. Much of the local Texas wood seems silicified by diatomaceous limestone sources, or limestone outcrops in the area are often peppered with a monoculture of similar pet wood if that means anything.

Good to see you got the vib-lap dialed in.

Some wood even has conglomerate filled sections. Locals have names for Texas wood like rotwood, shrinkwood, black wood, etc. Lots of various root petrifications too.

One report claimed over 400 species of pet palm in Texas. America probably has had only a dozen palm species since it was settled by Europeans. Must have been a diverse palm forest back in ancient times.

A gentleman has brought me about 250 to 300lbs of various varieties of wood from South Texas which I have been tumble polishing and Lap polishing for halves. It pretty neat material. It includes Shrink Wood, Rot Wood, Palm Wood, Snake Skin Wood and a few that defy identification. The strangest is the Toreado Wood with the some of tubes agate filled. 

The piece pictured is from an old collection I have access to. Was not sure where it was from or that it was definitely wood until I cut and polished a smaller piece from the rocks mentioned above which had much more wood grain on the outside and had an almost identical interior.

Hoping he brings a few larger pieces next time so I can cut and polish some larger cross sections. When the weather cools he and I may attempt a trip to one of the ranches, if he can make the contact again. Unfortunately most of the places have newer younger owners who want nothing to do with collectors. You have to find older long time land owners who can be a bit more accommodating to collectors. 

The quality of rocks along Lake Falcon increased with remoteness and hard-to-reach locations. Of course permission to enter was the biggest challenge. I just happened to be collecting on a remote gravelled road when a well connected ranch owner stopped and invited me to collect on his ranch and his nephew's/uncle's/cousin's adjacent ranches. Collectively about 5000 acres. I think I walked about 1% of 1% of the collective properties, never made a dent. I will say that west Texas ranch owners wanted nothing to do with granting permissions but the folks around L Falcon were very open to hosting such permissions on multiple occasions. Different mentality all together. Most of the ranches had gravel pits which were gold mines for agates and wood.
The third time I asked the initial ranch owner if I could bring a buddy(Captain Bob). He agreed but asked if he could borrow $700 which seemed to translate that he wanted a $700 payment for us to maintain permissions. So I paid him the money and never requested he pay me back. Money well spent considering the experience and fine rocks collected over a total of 6 weeks divided into three collecting trips.