Colorization - what was it's purpose?

[Dunsel]

I'm taking a break from my computational attacks on the Voynich.  I decided to look at the illustrations.  Before I begin, I fully claim to be art ignorant.

But, here's my observation/question.

I got GPT to help with this bit.  I took a page from the Voynich herbal section and a page from a 15th century herbal book, Erbario and asked it to remove the color from both images.

Now, I'll ask you to look at these two closely at how much information about the plant these images provide.  If this were a "field guide" herbal, could you identify the plant from these line drawings?

       

Next, click on the spoiler link below and ask yourself, how much additional information regarding identification was provided by adding color?  

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My interpretation, and I can visually apply this to other Voynich illustrations: Adding color didn't provide me with a lot more information.  Unlike Erbario where the colors would aid in identification, I think adding color to the Voynich plant may have made it more difficult to identify.

I know, this is nothing new. Just my musings.