Reinhart, Bruce Lloyd

About Professor Bruce Lloyd Reinhart

A kousa dogwood is dedicated to Bruce Lloyd Reinhart, a UMD Mathematics professor who taught at the university for nearly thirty years. Professor Reinhart was a native of Reading, PA, and received his bachelor’s degree (Phi Beta Kappa) from Lehigh University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics at Princeton University. He was honored numerous times throughout his career for his immense contributions to the field of topology, receiving Fulbright and NATO fellowships,¹ and in 1963 the Washington Academy of Sciences' scientific achievement award. In 1962, he solved a classic mathematics problem related to curves in two-dimensional space, and in 1983, he authored the book "Differential Geometry of Foliations.” Professor Reinhart lectured all over the world, including as a visiting professor at the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, Germany, and at Peking University in China. In his personal life, he was a dedicated member of the Silver Spring Unitarian Universalist Church and was married with three children.² Professor Reinhart passed away of cancer at his home in University Park on July 19, 1988.¹

About the Kousa Dogwood

The tree planted in memory of Bruce Lloyd Reinhart is located on the right side of the main entrance of William E. Kirwan Hall, close to the outdoor entrance to the food court there. It is a kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa), a small, deciduous flowering tree. It is currently 7.1 inches in diameter and 13.0 feet tall, but it can grow up to 30 feet tall. The kousa dogwood has a native range in Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan and features a characteristic brown and tan camouflage pattern on its trunk of exfoliating bark. It flowers from May to June, with four white, pointed petal-like bracts, which are modified leaves that are commonly referred to as the flower portion. However, the true flower is small and yellowish-green and housed in the center of the bracts.³ The kousa dogwood produces pinkish-red fruit - you may be lucky to see some songbirds around the tree in the summer that are attracted to the fruit! The tree grows in a rounded shape with dark green, oval-shaped leaves that turn beautiful shades of purple and scarlet in the fall.⁴