h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to the rubrik, this article was edited. The following sentence appears to have slipped through the net:

"It all began one fine day in the 1960s when it was observed that cultures of the marine bioluminiscence bacteria Vibrio fisheri was discovered to fluoresce only when large numbers of the organism were present."

Despite having only ordinary level GCE English, I shall attempt to parse the above. Please correct me, anyone who knows better.

"It all" - substantive phrase, subject of "began"
"began" - verb
"one fine day in the 1960s" - adverbial phrase, modifying "began"
"when it was observed ... present" - adjectival clause, modifying "one fine day .. "

"when" - conjunction?
"it" pronoun, subject of "was observed"
"was observed" - verb
"that cultures of the marine bioluminiscence bacteria Vibrio fisheri was discovered to fluoresce only when large numbers of the organism were present" - adverbial clause, modifying "was observed"

"that" - conjunction ?
"cultures of the marine bioluminiscence bacteria Vibrio fisheri was discovered to fluoresce only when large numbers of the organism were present" - substantive clause, object of "observed"

"cultures" - nominative, subject of " was discovered"
"of the marine bioluminiscence bacteria Vibrio fisheri" - adjectival phrase, modifying "cultures"
"was discovered" - verb
"to fluoresce only when large numbers of the organism were present" - adverbial phrase, modifying "was discovered"

The last phrase can be broken down, but it seems OK, so I'll leave it.

So, first, what was observed was that something was discovered! Was this the intended meaning?

Next, the clause "cultures .. present" reduces to "cultures was discovered", so "was" should be replaced by "were".

I also think "bacteria" should be singular, i.e. "bacterium", since the phrase refers to the whole of the one species involved.

Dry.