The document discusses R-trees, a data structure used to index multi-dimensional spatial data. R-trees allow for efficient searching of spatial data by grouping data into minimum bounding rectangles (MBRs) and storing them in a tree structure based on these envelopes. The tree structure resembles a B+-tree, with internal nodes containing pointers to child nodes or data records. R-trees provide efficient search, insertion, and deletion of spatial data objects through operations on the tree structure and splitting or merging of nodes as needed.