We survey recent developments about random real trees, whose prototype is the
Continuum Random Tree (CRT) introduced by Aldous in 1991. We briefly explain
the formalism of real trees, which yields a neat presentation of the theory and
in particular of the relations between discrete Galton-Watson trees and
continuous random trees. We then discuss the particular class of self-similar
random real trees called stable trees, which generalize the CRT. We review
several important results concerning stable trees, including their branching
property, which is analogous to the well-known property of Galton-Watson trees,
and the calculation of their fractal dimension. We then consider spatial trees,
which combine the genealogical structure of a real tree with spatial
displacements, and we explain their connections with superprocesses. In the
last section, we deal with a particular conditioning problem for spatial trees,
which is closely related to asymptotics for random planar quadrangulations.Comment: 25 page
