fig sample -tree that contains items that are all less than the item to the right of the pointer pointer to the right of an item points to node where all the items are greater than the item in fig the items in node are all less than while the items in node are all greater than -trees are always balancedmeaning that all the leaf nodes appear on the same level of the tree -tree may contain as many items and pointers as desired in each node there will always be one more pointer than items in node -trees don' have to fill each node the degree of -tree is the minimum number of items that -tree node may containexcept for the root node the capacity of node is always twice its degree in fig the degree is and the capacity is the requirements of -tree are as follows every node except the root node must contain between degree and *degree items every node contains one more pointer than the number of items in the node all leaf nodes are at the same level within -tree the items within -tree node are ordered in ascending (or descendingorder all nodes have their items in the same ordereither ascending or descending the items in the subtree to the left of an item are all less than that item the items in the subtree to the right of an item are all greater than that item to maintain these propertiesinserting and deleting items from the tree must be done with some care inserting an item can cause splitting of node deleting from tree sometimes requires rebalancing of the tree looking up an item in -tree is performed much the same way lookup is performed in binary search tree the node is examined to find the item if it is not foundthen the pointer is followed that lies between the items that are less than and greater than the item to be found if this leads to leaf node and the item is not found in the leaf nodethe item is reported as not in the tree this copy belongs to 'acha