Cribs in the Voynich MS

[Mark Knowles]

In the majority of old illustrated herbals, the first word in the description / recipe of the herb is the name of the plant. This is the main reason why people have been trying to identify the plants drawn in the MS. This would provide  a good crib 

Yes, but this requires a correct plant identification and the specific name used, if there are multiple possible names for the same plant, and it also requires one to be confident that the first word is the plant name. So there are quite a few steps required to establish a reliable crib from this.