u'ber: rich, luxurient, fruitful, full (Gledhill). The word uber in German of course means "over," but I don't know that has anything to do with the epithet uber.

-u'la/u'le: a diminutive adjectival suffix implying slightly.

Ul'ex: the ancient name of this or some similar plant, an ancient name used by Pliny for some not certainly identified plant. The genus Ulex was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called gorse.

uligino'sa/uligino'sum: of swamps and wet places.

ulmifo'lia: with leaves like elm, genus Ulmus.

Ul'mus: the classical Latin name for the elm. The genus Ulmus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called elm.

umbel'lata/umbel'latum: refers to the arrangement of the flowers in the inflorescence which arise in a head from a central point, i.e. bearing an umbel. Name derives from the Latin umbel, meaning "umbrella," or umbellatus meaning "equipped with parasols."

umbilica'ta/umbilica'tum: from the Latin umbilicus, "navel," thus navelled, with a navel, shaped like a navel.

umbro'sum: shade-loving, from umbro, "to shade," and umbrosus, "full of shade."

undulatifo'lius: Gledhill says with wavy leaf surfaces, but could also mean with wavy-margined leaves. The species Oplismenus hirtellus ssp. undulatifolius is called wavyleaf basketgrass.

undula'tum: wavy-margined.

unguicula'ta: furnished with a claw, contracted into a long narrow base, derived from the Latin word unguiculus, meaning "fingernail or toenail." When used in a botanical sense, it means that some part of the plant, generally the petals, has a claw-shaped base.

uniflor'a/uniflor'um/uniflor'us: with a single flower, one-flowered.

unifo'lia: one-leaved.

uniglu'mis: with one glume, which is a chaffy bract, specifically one of the paired bracts at the base of a grass spikelet.

Unio'la: Stearn says a Latin name for an unidentified plant, but not these perennial grasses. Merriam Webster says probably from unio, "oneness, unity, union." I found the following in an article in The Southwestern Naturalist (11)3 (1966) entitled "Revision of Grasses Traditionally Referred to Uniola, I. Uniola and Leptochloöpsis" by Harris O. Yates of the Department of Biology at David Lipscomb College: "The first account of Uniola as a genus was published in the first edition of Linnaeus' Genera Plantarum (1737). This was not, however, the first time the name Uniola had been associated with a plant. According to Fernald (Gray's Manual of Botany, 8th ed. 128. 1950), Uniola was the ancient name of some plant mentioned by Apuleius Barbarus, an early herbalist. The derivation of Uniola as a name was apparently first clarified by Linnaeus himself. In his Philosophia Botanica (p. 166, 1751) Linnaeus indicates that the name signifies a kind of diminutive of "Unione glumarum," from the Latin unio, meaning "union," and glumarum, denoting "husks," which refer to the nature of the spikelets." The genus Uniola was published by Linnaeus in 1753 and is commonly called sea oats.

uniner'via: one-nerved.

urceola'ta: from the Latin urceolus, "a small pitcher," urn-shaped.

ur'ens: from Latin urens, "acrid, stinging, burning," present participle of uro, "to burn or scorch." The species Tragia urens has the common name of wavyleaf noseburn.

urinar'ia: there are several roots that could apply to this epithet but the most likely seems to be urina, "urine." Neither Gledhill or Stearn give any derivation, but a website of the National Parks Board of Singapore says "The specific epithet urinaria refers to the plant's use in traditional medicine to treat urinary diseases." This seems to be confirmed by another source that says the name "refers to the urinary system and to its long history of folkloric use and benefit in the treatment of kidney and gallbladder stones, and hence, its common names of shatterstone or stonebreaker."

Urochlo'a: tailed grass, from the Greek oura, "tail," and chloe, "grass," alluding to the lemma which contracts abruptly to form a tail-like awn.

Ur'tica: from uro, "I burn," alluding to the nettle's sting. The genus Urtica was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called stinging nettle.

urticifo'lia: with leaves like Urtica.

urvil'lei: named for Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842), a French explorer, botanist and naval officer who

		explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. He was born at Condé-sur-Noireau in Lower Normandy. His father was the Bailiff of Condé-sur-Noireau responsible like his ancestors to the court of Condé, and he died when Jules was only six. The child was weak and often sickly. After the death of his father, his mother’s brother, the Abbot of Croisilles, took charge of his education, teaching him Latin, Greek, rhetoric and philosophy. From 1804 Dumont studied at the lycée Impérial in Caen. In the library of Caen, he read the Encyclopédistes and the many reports of travel of

Bougainville, Cook and Anson, and he became passionate about these matters. At the age of 17 he failed the physical tests of the entrance exam to the École Polytechnique and decided instead to enlist in the Navy, entering the French Naval Academy at Brest in 1807. At the time the French Navy was blockaded in ports by the British, and Dumont spent much of the early years studyng languages, and was promoted to Ensign in 1812. He already spoke, in addition to Latin and Greek, English, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Hebrew. And during his later travels in the Pacific, thanks to his prodigious memory, he would acquire some knowledge of an immense number of dialects of Polynesia and Melanesia. Meanwhile, ashore at Toulon, he learned about botany and entomology in long excursions in the hills of Provence, and he studied in the nearby Naval Observatory. In 1814 he undertook his first short navigation of the Mediterranean Sea, and in 1819 he sailed on a hydrographic survey of the Greek islands. The Columbia Encyclopedia entry on D'Urville reads as follows: "While on duty (1819-20) in the E. Mediterranean, he saw and recognized the importance of the newly discovered Venus of Milo and was influential in having the Louvre secure it.” In 1822 he sailed aboard the Coquille on a mission to survey the Falklands, Tahiti and other Pacific islands, and New Holland (W. Australia), eventually bringing back to France specimens of more than 3,000 species of plants, 400 of which were previously unknown, enriching moreover the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris with more than 1,200 specimens of insects, covering 1,100 insect species including 300 previously unknown. In 1826-1829 he commanded the Astrolabe (which was actually the Coquille renamed in honour of one of the ships of Jean François de Galaup, Comte de Lapérouse) in a voyage around the world, searching for the ill-fated 1788 La Pérouse expedition. He explored Fiji, Tonga and many other islands of Oceania, the New Zealand and New Guinea coasts, and the Moluccas. He identified the site of La Pérouse's shipwreck in Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands and collected numerous remains of his boats. As a botanist and cartographer, Dumont d'Urville left his mark on New Zealand. He gave his name to the genus of seaweeds Durvillaea, which includes southern bull-kelp; the seaweed Grateloupia urvilleana; the species of grass tree Dracophyllum urvilleanum; the shrub Hebe urvilleana and the buttercup Ranunculus urvilleanus. His health was by now weakened by years of a poor diet, and he suffered from kidney and stomach problems and from intense attacks of gout. From 1829 to 1837 he was on shore duty, writing the reports of his travels, and his irascibility due to the gout had lessened his standing with the Navy, but he dreamed of a third Pacific voyage akin to Cook’s, and his proposal was accepted by the King, although he was ordered to make the South Magnetic Pole his destination. The Astrolabe sailed with the Zélée in 1837 and although unhappy at first Dumont soon foresaw the possible advantages of polar exploration that could put France on a par with the United States and Britain. After reaching the Strait of Magellan, pack ice began to impede further southern travel and conditions on board became increasingly worse with many of the crew having fallen ill with scurvy, and Dumont in February 1838 recognized that they were not going to able to reach the Farthest South recorded by James Weddell in 1823, and so they headed for Chile to recuperate. The remainder of 1838 and 1839 were spent exploring the islands of Polynesia and in December reached Tasmania. After replacing crewmembers lost to illness, the two ships in January 1840 once again headed south to find the South Magnetic Pole, crossed the Antarctic Circle, penetrated the ice pack south of New Zealand, and made landfall on one of the Dumoulin Islands where they raised the French flag, calling the land beyond Adelie Land, a name that honored his wife Adèle Pepin. In February they conducted experiments and announced the discovery of the Magnetic Pole, thus achieving one of the goals of the expedition before returning to France. Dumont d'Urville was promoted to Rear Admiral and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Société de Géographie (Geographical Society of Paris). He then took over the writing of the report of the expedition, Voyage au pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes l'Astrolabe et la Zélée 1837–1840, which was published between 1841 and 1854 in 24 volumes, plus seven more volumes with illustrations and maps. In May 1842 he and his family boarded a train from Versailles to Paris, the locomotive and train cars derailed and caught fire, and Dumont and his family all perished. It was the first French railway accident and the deadliest in the world at the time, causing between 52 and 200 deaths. The accident led the French to abandon the practice of locking passengers in their carriages. Dumont d’Urville’s name is on a number of seas, islands and glaciers. His work resuled in extensive revisions of existing charts and discovery or redesignation of island groups.

usitatis'simum: from the Latin usitatus, "customary, common, familiar," from usitor, "to use often, to be in the habit of using," and the -issimum suffix which conveys the sense of "most or very," thus this would be "most or very customary, common or familiar." Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names gives "most useful" as the meaning, but "most used" and "most useful" don't exactly have the same sense so I'm not sure about this.

usneo'ides: resembling genus Usnea.

Utricular'ia: from the Latin utriculus, "a small bag, bladder, or bottle" the common name of which is bladderwort. The genus Utricularia was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called bladderwort.

u'va-ur'si: from Latin uva, "grape," and ursus, "bear," literally "bear's grape" referring to the fruit and to the fruits serving in the wild as bear food.

uveda'lia: named for Robert Uvedale, Jr. (1642-1722), an English cleric teacher and horticulturist who ran a grammar and boarding school north of London, took part in botanical exchanges, and published as a classical scholar. He was born in St. Margaret’s Parish, Westminster, and educated at St. Peter's College, Westminster. In April, 1659 Uvedale was elected queen's scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, He was elected Fellow of Trinity College in 1664, and is said to have been first a divinity fellow, and afterwards a law fellow. Between 1663 and 1665 Uvedale became master of the grammar school at Enfield, Middlesex, and leased a manor-house to take in boarders. During the outbreak of the plague in 1665 the whole of Uvedale's household escaped the disease, owing, it was thought, to their inhaling the vapour of vinegar poured over a red-hot brick. In 1676 it was complained that he neglected the grammar school for his boarders, his opponents making the further curious charge against him of having obtained an appointment as an actor and comedian at the Theatre Royal from the lord chamberlain to protect himself from the execution of a writ. He earned the degree of M.A. in 1666 and LL.D. in 1682, and in 1696 he was appointed to the rectory of Orpington, Kent. As a horticulturist Uvedale earned a reputation for his skill in cultivating exotics, being one of the earliest possessors of hothouses in England. He died at Enfield on 17 August 1722, and was buried in the parish church.

Uvular'ia: derived from the anatomical term uvula, the lobe hanging from the back of the soft palate in humans, botanically alluding to the hanging blossoms of the plant. The genus Uvularia was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called bellwort or merrybells.