Our featured specimen

Hermanophyton taylorii  (polished on both sides!)
Morrison Formation, Upper Jurassic
McElmo Creek, Colorado
** Excellent slab of Hermanophyton taylorii with apricot and chocolate brown hues and plenty of cortex at the 3 to 8 o'clock positions.  The cortex has some well preserved cortical bundles among the ramentum (see photomicrograph).  This slice also has some grub holes (at the 12:30 clock position on the periphery) resulting from insect predation (see photomicrograph).  Hermanophyton, as you know, is a rather scarce species.  The multiple segments of this unusual Jurassic tree are nearly instantly recognizable by all serious collectors of petrified wood, and are highly sought after.  The very collectible size of this specimen, at 4" x 2.5", is welcome at several levels.  Price is sometimes a barrier to obtaining the larger slabs and a small size makes for a smaller price AND because this small piece has good preservation of ramentum, cortical bundles and grub holes in a small package, it is easy to present on your shelf!  
The actual taxonomic affinity of the genus Hermanophyton is still undetermined.  Upon request, we can provide the collector who purchases this specimen a copy of the scanned PDF file of the paper prepared by Dr. William Tidwell describing the taxonomy of the Hermanophyton genus and species. 
4" x 2.5" on polished faces; 3/8" thick slice   $300  (immediately qualifies for our discount on orders over $200)

"Cupfern" (Cyathodendron texanum)
Jackson Group - Eocene
South Texas
** This is an ancient ancestor of the living genus Cyathea, a group of over 470 species of giant tree ferns found today in tropical climates. The early rockhounds thought that the frond bases in these fossils somehow resembled "cups" along the exterior and the name "cupfern" took hold for the fossil. Some rockhounds referred to them as "Fernbuds" because they thought the large frond bases represented "buds" of new ferns.  Of course, ferns do not reproduce by budding off of a trunk or rhizome so that name, while perhaps engaging, is completely incorrect in its interpretation. This fossil species was first described by Chester Arnold, one of the most accomplished American paleobotanists of the mid-20th century. The specific epitath, "texanum" is derived from the fact that the fossil was once widely found on the surface and collected on ranches and reservoir margins in south Texas. Today they are much harder to find - the surface materials have been picked up and new specimens are mainly found after rainstorms erode them out of streambanks and gullies. 

​This specimen is a longitudinal end cut of approximately 15% of the periphery of a quite large fern.  The natural side displays nearly a dozen very nice frond bases (that indeed resemble cups) and you can see some fabulous preservation of the anatomical structure on the polished longitudinal face.  The top of the photo would be the direction of fern growth.  Structures visible on the polished face include vascular bundles, ramentum, frond traces, and occasional adventitious roots.    Be sure to enlarge the photos to see the level of detail preserved.  
3.5" x 2.5" on polished face; false trunk section up to 1" thick  $79

Sycamore (Platanus sp.)
Little Butte Formation, Mehama volcanics unit, Oligocene
McQueen Ranch, Sweet Home area, Linn County, Oregon
**  Black and white beauty!  The McQueen Ranch has not produced petrified wood for quite a long time, but a recent logging operation and the attendant soil disruption has produced some really nice specimens and we thing we got some of the best!  The ranch is directly across the road from the famed Holleywood Ranch which has consistently produced enormous amounts of petrified wood, but the two neighboring sites could not be more different in mineralization.  While the Holleywood site has produced mainly tan to rust colored specimens, the material found recently at the McQueen is black with with incredibly handsome agate patterning.  This sycamore is one of the examples of this material.  When the logging operation is complete and the trees begin to regrow, there won't be any more petrified wood discovered for a considerable period of time.  So, if you like the striking patterns produced by this lovely material we suggest you acquire a specimen for your own collection before it is all gone - we did!
5.5" x 3.75" on polished face; 3/8" thick slab  $65

Bald Cypress (Taxodium sp.)
Upper Miocene
Eoulx-Brenon, near Castellane, France
**  This has been definitely a new and unique locality for us.  I've asked some of our European friends if they had heard of it and one particularly studious collector provided us with a 1967 paper on the locality.  We acquired the material in 2018 at Tucson and the label mysteriously noted that it was from the collection of "C.P." but the dealer did not want to elaborate more about the person.  We were assured of the provenance information.  The tiny villages of Eoulx and Brenon are just a few kilometers to the east of Castellane, the town that bears the same name as the Castellane Commune (the smallest administrative territorial division in France - roughly commensurate with a county here in the USA).)  Geologically, both communities sit on a thrust fault that exposes strata of a Tertiary sedimentary foreland basin, created by subduction of the North African Plate under the European Plate. These foreland basins are exceptionally complex geological structures in the French Alps - they have long been one of the most fascinating puzzles of French Geology.  Some have recently been described as sand-rich, turbidite submarine ramps fed by multiple-source fan deltas - an environment that definitely had an impact on the petrification of wood.  That would match up nicely with the conglomerate described in the 1967 paper.  The villages of Eoulx and Brenon are connected by the Torrent d' Eoulx, Torrent being the French word for a rushing stream.

This log likely was swept into the sea by a major flood event that immediately buried the log under sand on that submarine ramp (the ancient Mediterranean Sea is called the Tethys Sea by geologists).  Sand may not have been able to deliver silica into the log as quickly as perhaps a volcanic ash could have, but we are still fortunate that preservation took place in the outer half of the log.  The inner half may well have already been subjected to heart rot before being swept by the flood because it has no visible structural preservation of the anatomy.  One of the interesting microscopic features of this slab is the presence of leaf traces (actually the trace of the leaf petiole) which appear sporadically in some of the growth cycles.  This may have been the result of leaf propagation in the trunk or branch when weather conditions were particularly conducive to vigorous growth.  See our photomicrograph for a view of some of the leaf traces among the tracheids of this slab.  While they first appear to be large, odd-shaped resin canals, they are indeed leaf petiole traces. 

If you wish to read more about the complex geology of the region you can access a PDF of a very comprehensive article here:
https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/specpubgsl/221/1/1.full.pdf
To download the 1967 paper on wood from this locality see:
https://www.persee.fr/doc/linly_0366-1326_1967_num_36_7_5940
The paper is in French but Google Translate does a good job of converting it into readable English.
5" x 3" on the polished face; 1/2" thick slab  $79

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