He developed an interest in botany through his great-uncle, a forester at the Denkendorf convent, and his uncle's son, a student at the agricultural college in Hohenheim.

There he studied chemistry under Professor Hermann von Fehling and learned the plant world of the tropics in the greenhouses of the imperial court garden where his childhood friend, Wilhelm Hochstetter, was an apprentice.

After Mohr worked for a short time as a farmer in Indiana, he moved to Louisville and married a countrywoman from Zweibrücken, Sofie Roemer, on 12 March 1852.

At the end of 1857, he opened the first German pharmacy in Mobile, Alabama whose business development was hurt by the outbreak of the American Civil War.

In his pharmacy laboratory, Mohr began examination of fertilizers and minerals, as well as exploring the woods of Alabama for commercial timbers and other valuable natural resources.

Aside from this, he was busy working for Harvard University and other institutions, giving talks at large congresses and conducting a topographical examinations of north Florida in 1882.

In 1900, he moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where he worked on the large Biltmore Herbarium while compiling his beloved "Economic Botany of Alabama", about weeds, medicinal-, poisonous- and commercial-plants.

After some preliminary historical material, in which the work of such pioneers as Bartram, Buckley, Gates,[2] Peters, Beaumont,[3] and Nevius, are fully noted, the general physiographic features of the state are presented under topography and geology, river systems, and climate.

On the occasion of the 100-year anniversary of the geology department of the University of Alabama in 1948, Charles Theodore Mohr's life and work were recognized along with other predominant explorers, as he was a pioneer in his field of expertise for America.