[2][3] The species epithet mohriana honors the pharmacist and botanist Charles Mohr of Alabama.

[4] The Mohr oak can be a small tree up to 6 meters (20 feet) high or a large thicket-forming shrub.

The leaves are shiny, leathery, dark blue-gray and densely covered with light gray hairs underneath.

[2][3] The preferred habitat of this oak is on dry limestone or calcareous slopes at a height of between 600 and 2,500 m (2,000 and 8,200 ft) above sea level, in chaparral and desert scrub savanna.

[5] It grows in association with true mountain-mahogany Cercocarpus montanus, desert ceanothus Ceanothus greggii, the sandpaper oak Quercus pungens, oneseed juniper Juniperus monosperma, cane cholla Opuntia imbricata, purplefruited pricklypear Opuntia phaeacantha, Mexican buckeye Ungnadia speciosa, Texas persimmon Diospyros texana, hairy tridens Erioneuron pilosum and plateau oak Quercus fusiformis.