The crystal structure of 3-chloro-2-(4-methyl-phenyl)-2H-pyrazolo-[3,4-b]quinoline

In the mol-ecule of 3-chloro-2-(4-methyl-phen-yl)-2H-pyrazolo-[3,4-b]quinoline, C17H12ClN3, (I), the dihedral angle between the planes of the pyrazole ring and the methyl-ated phenyl ring is 54.25 (9)°. The bond distances in the fused tricyclic system provide evidence for 10-π delocalization in the pyrazolo-pyridine portion of the mol-ecule, with diene character in the fused carbocyclic ring. In the crystal, mol-ecules of (I) are linked by two independent C-H⋯N hydrogen bonds, forming sheets containing centrosymmetric R 2 (2)(16) and R 6 (4)(28) rings, and these sheets are all linked together by π-π stacking inter-actions with a ring-centroid separation of 3.5891 (9) Å.