“…However, the X-ray data rather show that the C-8, N-9 bond is longer than the other two C-N bonds (34), implying insufficient participation of N-9 in the resonance (41). As the cause of the depressed pKa, the interaction of two neighboring guanidinium groups was once considered but excluded (41), and there is an indication that such anomaly may be intrinsic to condensed five-membered 2-aminoimidazolines as exemplified by another anomalous guanidinium compound phakellin (23) with a pKa of 7.7 (42,43).…”