Afzelia

Afzelia wood can have incredible figure, and the most outstanding and rare is the xlay figure as seen above. It looks like raised alligator skin, which really shows best when the surface is very highly polished. No other wood figure looks quite like it, and it is very hard to get, being only a tiny percentage of the afzelia wood available. Not difficult to work, and the pieces below are dried. Note that the figure is normally wide on one side (the side you see pictured) and gets smaller on the other side. Sometimes the other side looks like tiny bubbles. Thinner pieces show more of the wide figure on both parallel sides.