The fragrance of flowers is due to the presence of some steam volatile organic compounds called essential oils. These are generally insoluble in water at room temperature but are miscible with water vapour in vapour phase. A suitable method for the extraction of these oils from the flowers is -
Essential oils are typically extracted from plant material by steam distillation. In this process, the plant material is exposed to steam, which causes the volatile essential oils to vaporize and then be condensed and collected separately.