Flowers are often a metaphor for a blooming life and beauty. 'Sons and Lovers' is a novel with many references to flowers; in fact, nature acts as a liaison between the timid adolescent Miriam and the hero of the autobiographical tale. Various flowers also quietly convey two different relationships to the reader too.
The plucking of a flower is often used metaphorically to express sexual experience, but in 'Sons and Lovers' it is a crushed flower which serves this purpose. Good book anyway.