[John]

The flower icons are graphical ways of seeing the status of a forum. This is useful when you frequently visit forums as it saves you the time from seeing if anything new has been posted in a particular forum. This is what they mean:

This forum contains no new posts since the last time you visited

This forum does contain new posts since the last time you visited

This forum is closed, meaning you cannot post anymore in it.

This means that this is a Resource that can be rated and review by you.

This means that this is a media listing (i.e. a blog, article, podcast, or videocast)