Melting point of 3-formyl salicylic acid is 132 degrees Celsius.

it's a friedel-craft acylation with the triethyl orthoformate being a formyl synthon. the AlCl3 is a Lewis acid, it coordinates the ethoxy group, which is kicked off by the adjacent oxygen. The ferrocene then is the nucleophile and the rest of the reaction is a standard electrophilic aromatic substitution leaving the formyl oxonium, which is quenched to the formyl on work-up.

i think that's how it goes anyway, i haven't read the paper.

a formyl group

Mohammed A. Bakir has written:

'Conformal analysis of the chemotactic agent N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe in solution'

Why are people smart enough to write a question on this site but too stupid to search for things?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Formylmethionine