A CRISIS has arisen in our national affairs. No, not the credit crunch this time, or the house-price plunge, or even the ever-present terror threat.

Britain is down to its last eight mycologists. And if that doesn’t worry you – maybe it should.

Mycologists study fungus and moulds, the stuff most of us don’t even think about but without which, life couldn’t exist on earth.

In 1990 we used to have 32 of them but now, according to the Oxford-based Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International, we are down to our last eight, with four due to retire in 2010.

CABI’s chief executive officer Dr Trevor Nicholls wants more graduates to specialise in the subject and when you understand the myriad uses and properties of fungi, you can begin to appreciate why.

Put simply, fungi are fabulous!

For starters there are probably more than two million species of which fewer than five per cent are known. They exhibit enormous variation in lifestyle and bio-chemical activity, much of which is not even fully understood.

Where would we be without penicillin, the original antibiotic, developed after Professor Alexander Fleming noticed that bacteria strains didn’t appear to be able to live next to a mould that had developed on one of his glass slides?

Or yeast, the stuff that makes bread rise and beer ferment? If we didn’t have mould and fungus, the planet would be engulfed by waste plant matter.

Mould can be a force for good (as a bio-attack on crops such as heroin poppies) or for bad (clogging up and corroding airplane fuel pipes).

Phellinus linteus mushrooms have been used for centuries in Eastern ancient medicine and earlier this year Cancer Research revealed they were being investigated for possible effects on breast cancer.

Yet the tiniest piece of a Death Cap toadstool can kill in a matter of days, while bidders at auction paid £165,000 for a giant white truffle, the king of the mycological world.

And of course, as fungi and mushrooms, moulds take on a strange, mysterious beauty.

Phil Goldney of the Dorset Fungus Group, which has nearly 100 members, is an enthusiastic amateur who is delighted to sing the praises of fungi in all its forms.

“It’s absolutely fascinating,” he says. “We know that fly agaric, the red and white spotted toadstool was fed to reindeer by the Vikings, who then drank their urine and went into battle fired up by it.

“But most people don’t know that fly agaric was also used to keep flies away, which is probably how it got its name.”

He believes one of the reasons gnomes are often depicted upon a fly agaric is because of the toadstool’s reputation as a hallucinogenic substance. “Presumably people thought they were seeing gnomes when they were high!”

Phil joins group members on Fungus Forays, led by Malcolm Pike.

“I’ve been running the group for 15 years simply because I felt that fungus was so beautiful there must be more to it than meets the eye,” he says.

“One thing I have realised is that in this country, fungus is almost a taboo subject.

“Because there are a few that are nasty and can kill you, people tend to steer clear of all of them.”

One that should definitely be steered clear of is the Death Cap, which is responsible for 90 per cent of deaths from mushroom poisoning and just 20 grammes of one can kill.

Malcolm Pike says: “If you take it you will feel very ill, then, for a few days you’ll feel better and think you’re getting well.

“Within three or four days you become ill again as the action of the poison destroys your liver.”

As a devoted amateur he does not study the biological application of mycology but supports the call for more people to come forward to specialise in the subject.

“You never know where the study in this area will lead,” he says, describing how scientists now believe the hysteria symptoms that lead to the fabled Salem Witch Trials were actually caused not by witchcraft but “by the ergot fungus on the rye, which they made into bread”.

Strange? Not to a mycologist...

See the website dorsetfungusgroup.com