Thank you, but the leaves are not that shiny!

Whatever it is, a chunk of bark that big falling off to expose the yellowish cambium is NOT a good sign. Can you post a closeup of the foliage? Actually I just thought of something. Are these trees usually evergreen? There are forms of Chinese Lacebark Elm that are evergreen in mild climates, which Houston normally is. This tree could not only have been in leaf, but in a semi-state of growth, when it was blasted by the cold wave. The temps well below freezing could have caused a type of extreme scald damage to the trunk. It literally peeled off due to the formation of ice. If that is what happened... although it's a very tough species, I assume the tree will continue to slowly decline and should be replaced eventually.

I've not had any problems with the spikes injuring any of our dogs (past and present), but they sure can mess up Hosta leaves when they fall (for whatever reason). We got rid of most of our poplar trees due to their size, but kept 3 or 4 in the very back of our lot. They did less damage than the marauding deer the last two years though. GRRR! Four less poplars, two maples, two beeches, and a big sour wood.

I don't want to give the impression that botany people always use the most current nonmenclature religiously. It's not like that at all. Botany people do want to know the most current name, and then it's their perogative to accept it, or reject it and continue to use whatever treatment they believe. And we like to mix things up and purposely use older synonyms to make the conversation more interesting. Then there's common names, and some plants have several common names. We use common names for laughs you know they generate a lot of humor. Then we have our own nicknames for plants which is a laugh too woohoo. Finally, we use codenames that contain enough information that the other plant person should be able to figure it out. I suppose symbols or hyrogliphics could be a 6th way of naming plants. I have to give out new names and send the memo. If I didn't, I'd feel like I wasn't being honest and careing, but everybody's free to call plants whatever they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. You know, don't tell someone it's celery, when you know it's poison hemlock. It's a horrible invasive here. Who in their right mind would bring poison hemlock to this continent?