A ternary tree is a type of data structure in computer science where each node can have up to three children. This structure allows for more branching than a binary tree, which only allows two children per node. Ternary trees can be useful for representing hierarchical data, such as organizational charts or file systems, where each node can have multiple subcategories. In a ternary tree, each node typically contains a value and pointers to its three children. The tree can be traversed in various ways, including pre-order, in-order, and post-order traversals, similar to binary trees. Ternary trees can also be used in algorithms for searching and sorting data efficiently.