Botanical explorer of the nineteenth century and one of the first North American Naturalists to botanize in a tropical country. While fighting in the Mexican war and as a member of Col. Graham's expedition to settle the boundary between Mexico and the U. S. he had many opportunities to collect plants for Asa Gray and others. Two volumes under the name Plantae Wrightiana were published to describe the new species and collecting localities. A later expedition to explore the Pacific ended in Nicaragua. Finally for ten years, 1856-66 he collected in Cuba and during that time succeeded in tripling the number of known Cuban species.

Two field notebooks (1) Plants of Cuba, including 1710 numbers, and some herbarium labels “Coll. C. Wright, 1856-57, in Cuba Orientalis” (2) Plants of New Mexico, listing 2153 numbers, many of them blank, 1861.