I’ve looked thru these forum pages and can’t find any recent thread that has updated pictures of the infamous “Black Stem”.  There seems to be definite inconsistencies with many plants confirming their genuine. I got mine from @Josh-O last year and finally planted planted it out recently.  It is facing North protected from the South and gets filtered afternoon sun from the West. For a “slow” plant, mine seems to be trucking along and even started pushing another spear to start clumping.