Stroking a path will paint a line with the brush you've chosen on the path you've drawn, filling a path will fill a shape you're drawn with the pen tool with a color or pattern. 

Jaguarwoman and I wrote a tutorial a while back  that shows how to paint bows which is a bit like painting flowers, my part in it shows how to use paths for it (it's in my little store).  I don't know if there are any others like it elsewhere, probably, I'm sure we didn't invent the wheel, ours is just my own way and Jaguarwoman's way of going about it.  Jaguarwoman also has another one in her store specifically for flowers, not sure if she uses path for it or not though.

Apologies for plugging my own stuff, but I really don't know of other tutorials for this...

Lucie
finfond.net
finfond.net (store)