Actually diethyl ether and acetone are equally suitable for extracting trimyristin from nutmeg. Taxol was isolated from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree. Trimyrisitin is isolated from nutmeg. More natural products have been isolated from plants than animals. All of the above are true.
Steam distillation refers to the distillation of two immiscible liquids.
A high-boiling essential oil can be isolated, without thermal degradation, from its natural source by distillation at a much lower boiling point. Raoult's Law can be used to predict the vapor pressure exerted by two liquids in a steam distillation. The vapor pressure of two immiscible liquids is the sum of the vapor pressures of each liquid individually. The boiling point of a steam distillation is less than the boiling point of water.