Macroscopic and microscopic description of wood applied in the identification of the main commercial species in the State of São Paulo-Programs "São Paulo Amigo da Amazonia" and "Cadmadeira" The exploitation of the wood, especially in the Amazon region, has increased in the last decades. It is estimated that 24 million m³ of wood in trunk forms are being extracted from the Amazon forest, where approximately 15% are bought by the Paulista's market (the consumers from Sao Paulo). This fact makes Sao Paulo the biggest native wood consumer in the world, with a total of 3.6 million m³ distributed in the region, and bought by its diverse economic sectors. The necessity of supervise, check and control this market pushed the Sao Paulo's government to create, in 2007, the Project entitled 'Sao Paulo Friends of the Amazon' (in Portuguese 'Sao Paulo amigo da Amazonia', SPPA), and the statute 53.047 from 2nd of June 2008 supported this Project. From that, a record of wood sellers in Sao Paulo is created, including records of the products and sub products made from native wood originated from the Brazilian flora (called CADMADEIRA). The supervision performed under this statute consists in checking the wood brought into the Sao Paulo state against their documentation of origin, and the identification of the wood in the buyers' delivery point. With that in mind, this study was performed between November 2008 and July 2011, where 68 wood buyers' company were visited, around 37 different regions in the Sao Paulo state. 90 main species of wood were identified, and a sample was collected from each wood for further macro and microscopic analysis. A descriptive file was created for each species, containing macroscopic and microscopic characteristics and details about the main usage of the wood. After that, a recognition chain was created to easily identify the species already catalogued. Using the method developed in this study, it was possible to identify the 8 main species that were being wrongly grouped and being sold under the same name, being: abiú (Chrysophyllum sp; Micropholis sp. e Pouteria sp.), amescla (Protium sp. E Trattinnickia sp.), bacuri (Moronobea pulchra e Platonia insignis), caixeta amarela (Parkia sp. e Simarouba amara), cambará (Qualea sp. e Vochysia sp.), louro pardo (Cordia trichotoma e Nectandra sp.), sucupira (Bowdichia virgilioides e Diplotropis sp.), tauari (Cariniana micrantha e Couratari guianensis). The correct identification of the wood has been shown very important to help the supervision and regulation of the legal commercialization of forest products in the Sao Paulo estate.
