Several factors affect wood durability but the influence of anatomy is scarcely studied. Vessels and fibres sampled across and along stems of Milicia excelsa (Welw.) CC Berg)(odum), En-tandrophragma cylindricum (Sprague) Sprague (sapele), Terminalia ivorensis A. Chev.(emire) and Antiaris toxicaria Lesch.(kyenkyen) were studied to understand the relationship between their vessel-fibre (VF) ratios, specific gravities (SGs) and durabilities. Vessels, fibres and their proportions were examined from macerates and TS of prepared slides. While the timbers ex-hibit major hardwood cell-types (eg vessels, fibres and parenchyma), intra-stem variability ex-ists with more vessels and greater VF ratios at the crowns and in sapwoods than at the butts and in heartwoods, unlike for fibres. Inter-specific variation also shows A. toxicaria has the greatest vessel content then T. ivorensis, E. cylindricum and M. excelsa, a contrary pattern for fibre con-tents. VF ratio ranks as: A. toxicaria> E. cylindricum> T. ivorensis> M. excelsa, while SGs are higher in E. cylindricum (667) and M. excelsa (635) than in T. ivorensis (507) and A. toxi-caria (505), which hardly differ from published data. Except for E. cylindricum, butts have the greatest SGs. Correlations between their VF ratios and SGs are R2= 34%, 84%, 32% and 1% respectively. Timbers with greatest vessels and VF ratios but least fibres and SGs have weak relationship and very low durabilities, as in A. toxicaria (R2= 1%). However, M. excelsa, which has the strongest VF ratio and SG relationship (R2= 84%), is very durable.