C27H45N3, monoclinic, P121/c1 (no. 14), a = 11.448(2) A, b = 24.793(3) A, c = 9.767(1) A, = 113.087(2)°, V = 2550.0 A, Z = 4, Rgt(F) = 0.067, wRref(F) = 0.222, T = 293 K. Source of material 1,3,5-Tris(bromomethyl)-2,4,6-trimethylbenzene was synthesized according to the reported procedure [1]. Piperidine (0.77 g, 9 mmol) and NaOH (1.08 g, 27 mmol) were dissolved in dry dioxane (25 ml) and the solution was stirred for 2 hours at room temperature, then 1,3,5-tris(bromomethyl)-2,4,6-trimethylbenzene (1.19 g, 3 mmol) was added. The resultant solution was heated to reflux for 6 hours. Removal of solvent resulted in a white powder that was recrystallized from dichloromethane/petroleum ether solution at room temperature to give the desired product as colorless crystals suitable for single-crystal X-ray diffraction (yield 0.74 g, 60%;m.p. 415 418K). Elemental analysis — found: C, 78.77 %; H, 11.02 %; N, 10.21 %; calculated for C27H45N3: C, 78.92 %; H, 10.91 %; N, 10.02 %. IR, NMR and MS-ESI data are available in CIF. Discussion Tripodal ligands based on nitrogen heterocycles have been widely employed in many areas of inorganic chemistry [2]. For example, tripodal ligands with an arene core have been found to be one of the most useful organic building blocks in construction of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) [3,4]. Especially in the case of flexible tripodal ligands such as 1,3,5-tris(4-pyridylmethyl)benzene [5] and 1,3,5-tris(imidazol-1-ylmethyl)-2,4,6trimethylbenzene [6], inwhich the coordinating groupswere connected to the central benzene ring through the methylene groups, a variety ofMOFs can be expected since such flexible ligands can adopt different conformations according to the different geometric requirements of metal atoms [7,8]. In the flexible tripodal ligand, the C(piperidino-1-ylmethyl)—N distances (1.453(3) 1.467(3)A) are similar to those of the related compound (1,3,5-{tris(3-tert-butylimidazol-2-ylideno)methyl}2,4,6-trimethylbenzene thallium(I), 1.464(2) 1.467(2) A) [9]. The C atoms (methyl and piperidino-1-ylmethyl) and benzene ring are approximately coplanar, the three piperidino groups are arranged in an asymmetrical fashionwith respect to the anchoring mesitylene ring [10], and adopt chair conformations. In the crystal structure stacking interactions exist between the benzene rings of neighboring ligands (dihedral angle is 0°, the interplane distances are about 3.713 A and 3.709 A), and are attributed to construct the one-dimensional chain structure. 262 Z. Kristallogr. NCS 223 (2008) 262-264 / DOI 10.1524/ncrs.2008.0111 © by Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munchen Crystal: colorless block, size 0.18 × 0.26 × 0.41 mm Wavelength: Mo K radiation (0.71073 A) : 0.62 cm−1 Diffractometer, scan mode: Bruker SMART CCD, 2 max: 51° N(hkl)measured, N(hkl)unique: 19391, 4743 Criterion for Iobs, N(hkl)gt: Iobs > 2 (Iobs), 2485 N(param)refined: 269 Programs: SHELXS-97 [11], SHELXL-97 [12], SHELXTL [13] Table 1. Data collection and handling.