Career
He was employed as a postal worker in Halle. Around 1873 he developed an interest in cacti, and subsequently amassed a large collection of living plants as well as creating a herbarium. He was the binomial authority of numerous species within the family Cactaceae, of which he published his findings in the Monatsschrift für Kakteenkunde.
Plants with the specific epithets of quehlianum and quehlianus are named in his honor.
Examples being:
Echinocactus quehlianus (FHaage ex Quehl). Gymnocalycium quehlianum (FHaage ex Quehl) Vaupel ex Hosseus).
