yellow, brown or purple

yellow-billed tropicbird

Organoleptic characteristics: Rind: ranges in colour from pale, straw yellow to deep yellow.

When cut, the colour ranges from white for the ‘fresh’ cheese to more or less intense straw yellow for the ‘semi-mature’, ‘mature’ and ‘extra-mature’ versions; Aroma: persistent reminiscent of milk and wild cardoon, with scents of aromatic plants and yellow flowers; Taste: initially mild, with scents of milk and flowers and a note of cardoon; an aftertaste that is long and persistent with fresh green echoes; a slightly spicy end note, a characteristic which becomes more intense the longer the cheese has been matured, accompanied by tastiness and a slightly astringent quality in the ‘mature’ and ‘extra-mature’ cheeses.

(ii) Microscopical, — when suitably mounted and examined under the microscope, thyroid shows the following: numerous smooth to striated hyaline fragments of colloids, of angular to irregular shape, that are colourless to pale yellow in water mounts, brown in Mallory’s stain and pink in solution of eosin, some of these fragments containing granules, minute vacuoles, crystalloidal bodies and cells; numerous irregular fragments of follicular epithelium staining brown with Mallory’s stain, the individual cells more or less polygonal to rounded-angular or irregularly cuboidal, often with prominent nuclei staining dark blue, their cytoplasm p ...[+++]urplish with Delafield’s solution of haematoxylin; slender glistening segments of capillaries of closely undulate outline; numerous slender segments of neuraxons; numerous aggregates of particles of intercellular substance and slender, mostly straight connective tissue fibres staining blue to greenish blue with a mixture of Mallory’s stain and solution of phosphotungstic acid, the bundles of fibres often appearing reddish in Mallory’s stain; few glistening fragments of blood vessels with serrated or crenated ends as viewed in water mounts; and

The heads form a prolonged cone shape, moderately compact, and of a minimum length of 6 cm and a diameter of between 6 and 13 cm; large, long green external bracts with extensive purple-brown shading, with pointed summits ending in a yellow thorn; straw yellow internal bracts with purple veins; stalks of a length of between 10 and 40 cm (an exception allowed for by Regulation (EC) No 1466/2003) and of a thickness of between 1 and 3,5 cm.