by CKR
I was in Ripon, Wisconsin, over the weekend. Ripon College has a prairie conservancy which is contiguous to the South Woods Nature Preserve. Both together contain a wide range of wet and dry areas, trees and prairie. The area is considered to be oak savannah, a mixture of oak thickets and grassland. 
Farming in the area has continued the open fields spotted with oaks, but of course the fields are soybeans and corn rather than prairie.
Here's what the prairie looked like this weekend. I once thought a prairie was all grass, but it's not by any means, as you can see in the next photo. The plants come up and flower at different times, a complicated dance of shade and not-shade, who gets the rain, where the roots go, who's poisoning whom, and so on. 
The phlox were blooming. This series of photos shows how varied they are. 
They grow in wet shady environments, and they border groups of trees in dryer areas. I'm not sure if these are wild phlox or if they're garden escapees. They were everywhere.
I've always enjoyed swampy plants. They have a different quality, even different sorts of flowers. Skunk cabbage really does smell bad when you pick those beautiful smooth leaves. 
Jacks-in-the-pulpits are fascinating and were everywhere. Some were already past their prime, with the pulpit wilting. Eventually the pulpit and the, um, jack will be gone and there will be a spike of red berries.
The pièce de résistance was a small group of shooting stars.