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This article describes the wood anatomy of seven species of Tachigali Aublet with the aim of identifying 1) diagnostic characters at the species level and 2) anatomical features with potential for future combined morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis. Tachigali species present fibre dimorphism and can be grouped according to the arrangement of the thin-walled fibres: tangential bands of thin-walled fibres alternating with thick-walled fibres, as in T. duckei and T. vulgaris; wavy bands , as in T. paratyensis, T. glauca and T. vulgaris; well-developed bands to describe the abundance of thin-walled fibres in contrast to thick-walled fibres, as in T. denudata and T. pilgeriana; and in islands or groups of thin-walled fibres scattered among ordinary fibres. It is recommended to explore the phylogenetic significance of the different types of fibre dimorphism in future combined molecular and morphological cladistics analyses.

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Paubrasilia echinata is recognized as the best wood in the manufacture of high-quality bows for string instruments. The wood anatomy of five historic French violin bows of the 19th and 20th century made of Pernambuco wood were investigated in order to reveal the wood anatomic features of these historical bows, to determine which P. echinata morphotype (arruda, café or laranja) was used in their manufacture and to identify the state of origin of the wood. Five bow samples were compared to 33 P. echinata specimens from the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte. The wood anatomical features were compared by means of principal component analysis, which revealed the type of axial parenchyma and percentage of tissue to be the most important to sort specimens. The best wood anatomical features previously described for high-quality bows were corroborated here and the bows in general showed similar wood anatomical features. Based on wood anatomy we found that the violin bows were most similar to the samples from the arruda morphotype derived from the States of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte by presenting scanty, unilateral and vasicentric axial parenchyma without confluences forming bands, higher percentage of fibres and lower percentage of axial parenchyma. We can therefore suggest that the historical French violin bows studied here were all made of the arruda morphotype from the Brazilian Northeast region helping explain the preference of the French explorers for this region.