The title compound, C7H13N3022+.2C1 -, has distances and angles quite similar to those of histidine hydrochloride monohydrate [Donohue & Caron (1964). Acta Cryst. 17, 1178Cryst. 17, -1180, except for the distances within the ester functionality. Am. Chem. Soc. 94,8212. Frisch, M. J., Head-Gordon, M., Trucks, G. W., Foresman, J., Schlegel, H., Raghavachari, K., Robb, M. S., Binkley, J. S., Gonzalez, C., Defrees, D. J., Fox, D. J., Whiteside, R. A., Seeger, R., Melius, C. F., Baker, J., Martin, R. L., Kahn, L. R., Stewart, J. J. P., Topiol, S. & Pople, J. A. (1992). GAUSSIAN92. Gaussian Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Gao, Q., Sood, A., Shaw, B. R. & Williams, L. D. (1996). Acta Cryst.C52. In the press. Johnson, C. K. (1965 11 mmol) were refluxed for 8 h in 300 ml of tetrahydrofuran. The mixture was allowed to cool. The resulting solids were collected by vacuum filtration and recrystallized from water. Symmetry codes: (i) 1 + x, y, z; (ii) 1 -x, y -½, -1 -z.
Crystal dataThe absolute configuration was fixed by the use of L-histidine in the 'synthesis'. Inversion of the structure and refinement of the D configuration gave a slightly poorer agreement (R = 0.0329, wR = 0.0346 and S = 1.88). Data collection: MSC/AFC Diffractometer Control Software (Molecular Structure Corporation, 1988 We are grateful to the Kresge Foundation for providing the funds for the purchase of the diffractometer used in this work.