A triclinic polymorph with Z = 3 of N,N′-bis­(2-pyrid­yl)oxamide

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, C(12)H(10)N(4)O(2), contains three half-mol­ecules. Each half-mol­ecule is completed by crystallographic inversion symmetry. The title compound, (I), is a polymorph of the structure, (II), reported by Hsu & Chen [Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. (2004), 1488–1493]. In the original report, the compound crystallized in the tetra­gonal space group P [Image: see text]2(1)c (Z = 8), whereas the structure reported here is triclinic (P [Image: see text], Z = 3). In both forms, each oxamide mol­ecule is almost planar (with maximum deviations are 0.266 and 0.166 Å) and the O atoms are trans oriented. The principal difference between the two forms lies in the different hydrogen-bonding patterns. In (I), two N—H⋯O and one N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules, forming a two-dimensional network, whereas in (II) there are no classical hydrogen bonds to O atoms and only weak C—H⋯O inter­actions are found along with rings of N—H⋯N bonds.