[3][4] It is endemic to Luoxiao Mountains at the border of the Jiangxi and Hunan provinces in southeastern China.

[1][3] Its specific name honours professor Ying Lin (1914–2003), botanist and vice chancellor of Nanchang University who conducted biodiversity surveys and research in the Jinggang Mountains.

[2] Males have tiny, black nuptial spines on the middle of the dorsal surface of the first finger and a single vocal sack.

[2] Boulenophrys lini is only known from a number of locations on the Luoxiao Mountains: Dabali and Niushiping in the Yanling Taoyuandong National Nature Reserve, Hunan, and Jingzhushan, Bamianshan (the type locality), and Nanfengmian Nature Reserve in Jiangxi.

It lives along rushing mountain streams surrounded by subtropical moist evergreen broadleaf forests at elevations of 1,100–1,610 m (3,610–5,280 ft) asl.