  This paper deals with the size of the spanning tree of p randomly chosen
nodes in a binary search tree. It is shown via generating functions methods,
that for fixed p, the (normalized) spanning tree size converges in law to the
Normal distribution. The special case p=2 reproves the recent result (obtained
by the contraction method by Mahmoud and Neininger [Ann. Appl. Probab. 13
(2003) 253-276]), that the distribution of distances in random binary search
trees has a Gaussian limit law. In the proof we use the fact that the spanning
tree size is closely related to the number of passes in Multiple Quickselect.
This parameter, in particular, its first two moments, was studied earlier by
Panholzer and Prodinger [Random Structures Algorithms 13 (1998) 189-209]. Here
we show also that this normalized parameter has for fixed p-order statistics a
Gaussian limit law. For p=1 this gives the well-known result that the depth of
a randomly selected node in a random binary search tree converges in law to the
Normal distribution.
