We study descriptive set theory in the space $^{\omega_1}\omega_1$ by letting trees with no uncountable branches play a similar role as countable ordinals in traditional descriptive set theory. By using such trees, we get, for example, a covering property for the class of $\Pi^1_1$-sets of $^{\omega_1}\omega_1$. We call a family $\mathscr{U}$ of trees universal for a class $\mathscr{V}$ of trees if $\mathscr{U} \subseteq \mathscr{V}$ and every tree in $\mathscr{V}$ can be order-preservingly mapped into a tree in $\mathscr{U}$. It is well known that the class of countable trees with no infinite branches has a universal family of size $\aleph_1$. We shall study the smallest cardinality of a universal family for the class of trees of cardinality $\leq\aleph_1$ with no uncountable branches. We prove that this cardinality can be 1 (under $\neg$CH) and any regular cardinal $\kappa$ which satisfies $\aleph_2 \leq \kappa \leq 2^{\aleph_1}$ (under CH). This bears immediately on the covering property of the $\Pi^1_1$-subsets of the space $^{\omega_1}\omega_1$. We also study the possible cardinalities of definable subsets of $^{\omega_1}\omega_1$. We show that the statement that every definable subset of $^{\omega_1}\omega_1$ has cardinality $<\omega_n$ or cardinality $2^{\omega_1}$ is equiconsistent with ZFC (if $n \geq 3$) and with ZFC plus an inaccessible (if $n = 2$). Finally, we define an analogue of the notion of a Borel set for the space $^{\omega_1}\omega_1$ and prove a Souslin-Kleene type theorem for this notion.