How can I store a binary space partitioning tree in a relational database?

Question

I'm trying to store the data in a binary space partitioning tree in a relational database. The tricky part about this data structure is it has two different types of nodes. The first type, which we call a data node, simply holds a certain number of items. We define the maximum number of items able to be held as t. The second type, which we refer to as a container node, holds two other child nodes. When an item is added to the tree, the nodes are recursed until a data node is found. If the number of items in the data node are less than t, then the item is inserted into the data node. Otherwise the data node is split into two other data nodes, and is replaced by one of the container nodes. When an element is deleted, a reverse process must happen.

I'm a little bit lost. How am I supposed to make this work using a relational model?