Natural History
The watershed has numerous flora and fauna species, with considerable forested reaches. In the 1909 survey by Willis Linn Jepson there were found to be 20,000 trees (5000 of which were large trees) in the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River. There are also numerous wildflower species including the iconic Yellow Mariposa Lily, Calochortus luteus, which has been specifically noted in the Lime Kiln Creek tributary watershed. The Kaweah River is famous for its stands of giant sequoias, which were one of the reasons for the establishment of the national park. The giant sequoia are native to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and they are especially abundant in the South Sierra, where the Kaweah River flows.
Read more about this topic: Kaweah River
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—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
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