Reichenbach published Ranunculus binatus in his Flora Germanica Excursoria in 1832, based on a specimen collected by Welden in Transylvania, Romania, and attributed the name to Kitaibel. Since then, the identity of R. binatus has been a focus of discussion by Schur, Janka, Schiller, Jasiewicz and further botanists, in particular since Schiller considered R. binatus a corner stone in the evolution of the R. auricomus complex. To clarify the concept of R. binatus and settle the application of the name, it is here typified. Because no specimen used with certainty by Reichenbach appears to be extant, a well preserved specimen in the herbarium Kitaibelianum, Budapest, identified by Kitaibel himself as R. binatus, collected by Genersich in northern Slovakia and morphologically agreeing well with the original description, is designated as the neotype of the name R. binatus.
A Ranunculus binatus Kit., mely egykor önálló fajként ragyogott a botanika egén, ily módon lassan-lassan elhomályosult a kételkedés sürü felhöi közt, mit már-már el nem tünt a szemünk elöl.
[Ranunculus binatus, which was to admire as a lucent star at the botanical heaven, was pushed slowly, very slowly behind the clouds, and then we lost sight of it.]
Zs. Schiller (1917: 376)