Abstract In this research, to investigate the effect of chief vein (chief trunk of leaf vein) on the friction-reduction and wear resistance of vein-bionic textured bearings, four vein-bionic texture patterns inspired by two types of leaves (Clausena lansium, Ash) were manufactured on the raceways of the shaft washers of 81107TN cylindrical roller thrust bearings (CRTBs) using a fiber laser marking system. A vertical universal wear test rig equipped a customized tribo-pair was employed to record the coefficient of friction (COF) of bearings under starved lubrication, the generated wear losses of the shaft washers and worn surfaces were characterized. Static finite element analyses (SFEA) of paths located at different depths in vertical direction of contact regions for raceway were conducted to reveal their surface stresses. The results show that all vein-bionic textures exhibit the improved tribological properties under starved lubrication, while textures with no-chief vein are prone to the excellent wear resistance compared to textures with chief vein. The stress distribution of vein-bionic textures with no-chief vein is significantly impacted by various depths, the subsurface stresses reduce with the increased depths, but that of textures with chief vein have the reversed tendency. A reasonable influence mechanism of chief vein on the tribological properties of resulting textures is proposed.