Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge is a bottomland hardwood

Hardwood

Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...

 forest located in western Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 near Benton

Benton, Kentucky

Benton is a city in Marshall County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 4,197 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Marshall County....

. The refuge lies along the East Fork of the Clarks River

Clarks River

The Clarks River, named for William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is a tributary of the Tennessee River in the Jackson Purchase region of western Kentucky. For the greater part of its length, it consists of two parallel forks of approximately equal size, the East Fork and the West Fork...

 and is seasonal home to over 200 different species of migratory birds. The bottom lands are dominated with overcup oak

Overcup Oak

Quercus lyrata is an oak in the white oak group . It is native to lowland wetlands in the southeastern United States, from Delaware and southern Illinois south to northern Florida and southeast Texas....

s, bald cypress, and tupelo gum, and the slightly higher, better drained areas are covered with willow oak

Willow Oak

Quercus phellos is a deciduous tree in the red oak group of oaks. It is native to eastern North America from southern New York south to northern Florida, and west to southernmost Illinois and eastern Texas...

, swamp chestnut oak

Swamp Chestnut Oak

Quercus michauxii, the swamp chestnut oak, is a species of oak in the white oak section Quercus section Quercus, native to bottomlands and wetlands in the southern and central United States, from New Jersey south to northern Florida, and west to Missouri and eastern Texas; it is rare north of the...

, red oak, sweet gum, sycamore

Sycamore

Sycamore is a name which is applied at various times and places to three very different types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms....

, ash and elm

Elm

Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The dozens of species are found in temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ranging southward into Indonesia. Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests...

.

The refuge has a surface area of 8,040.32 acre

Acre

The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s (32.54 km² or 3,254 ha

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

).