Some Historical Data Bearing on the Pine Barrens Treefrog, 
Hyla andersoni, in South Carolina 
E. E. Brown 
Box 43, Davidson, North Carolina 28036 
ABSTRACT. — Hyla andersoni, the Pine Barrens Treefrog, was 
described in 1854 by Baird from a specimen sent apparently by 
Charlotte Paine of Anderson, South Carolina, a site some distance 
inland from the sandhills strip. The type locality has long been in 
question. The species has since been collected in South Carolina, 
but apparently not yet at a point close to Anderson. Charlotte Paine 
and/or her co-worker, Mrs. M. E. Daniel, were located in Anderson 
from 1848 through 1857 and sent Baird many specimens, including 
the single H. andersoni. Attempts to trace travels and routes of 
these women, activities of potential student collectors at the Ander- 
son school where they taught, and other historical aspects, have 
shed no further positive light on the source of the type specimen. 
Baird (1854) described Hyla andersoni from a single specimen sent to 
him from Anderson (Anderson County), South Carolina, apparently by a 
local teacher, Charlotte Paine. A perennial question has concerned the 
actual point of collection of the Anderson frog, thus the type locality of 
the species, especially in the absence of other South Carolina specimens 
(Gosner and Black 1967, Neill 1947, Wright 1932). Whereas H. andersoni 
is usually considered to be restricted to pockets in the pine barrens 
region, the town of Anderson is located well up in the Piedmont Plateau, 
some 70 airline miles inland from the Fall Line and perhaps 65 miles 
from the nearest margin of the sandhills strip. (Reduce either of these dis- 
tances by about 15 miles to reach only the lower border of Anderson 
County.) Furthermore, some early collectors paid little attention to exact 
locality records and individual specimens often were not labeled. Any 
specimens sent in by Charlotte Paine and her co-worker, Mrs. M. E. 
Daniel, probably were recorded at the destination as simply “from 
Anderson.” 
Although it is well known that certain typical Coastal Plain forms 
extend sparsely into the Piedmont here and there, especially farther 
south, this topic has not been adequately investigated. Folkerts (1971) 
reported Ambystoma tigrinum and Eurycea quadridigitata from Anderson 
County and the latter also from Pickens County. I have seen this Eurycea 
north of Greenville in Greenville County, and Scaphiopus holbrooki just 
south of Belton in Anderson County, and I believe Franklin Sherman 
had records of Cemophora coccinea in Pickens County. Although I did 
not see a specimen, I was told locally of an apparently reliable record of 
Farancia abacura from about nine miles down the Savannah River from a 
point opposite Anderson. While these remarks refer to typical Coastal 
Brimleyana No. 3: 113-117 July 1980. 1 1 3 
