Heating a neat 1: 2 mixture of 2-picolylamine and 2-cyanopyridine followed by treatment of the resultant red gummy substance with aqueous KOH resulted in the isolation of 2, 4, 5-tris (2-pyridyl) imidazole (1a) as the major product and N-(3-(2-pyridyl) imidazo [1, 5-a] pyridine) picolinamidine (2a) in small amounts. Similarly, by using 3-picolylamine, 2, 4,-bis (2-pyridyl)- 5-(3-pyridyl) imidazole (1b) and N-(3-(3-pyridyl) imidazo [1, 5-a] pyridine) picolinamidine ( ...