Entwives
 

It is so sad that the entwives are lost.

Could they be dormant?

When Ents and Entwives produce Entlings, would they be live births, or could they start out as Ent Seeds? Seeds do make some sence, as the Ents are not all that "bendable", polienation being easier.

After the influence of Sauron as over, the White tree grew again., from a seed centuries old. Perhaps after the influence of Sauron was over, maybe the Brown lands may start to recover, Entlings sprout, of which some would be female.

Don't take anyone for granted -- learn the lessons of the ents.

BTW, what do female Orks look like? I've may of dated one once.

Just my personal opinion, I think the Entwives moved to the Shire. Because if you just look at the conversation at the Green Dragon it is in the beginning of "The Shadow of the Past" I beleive, in the Fellowship of the Ring. But I don't think Entings, because the Ents and the Entwives hadn't seen each other for and age or so.... Maybe younger full grown Ents from the last time they saw each other though.

I have always thought this was the case as well that the Entwives were up in the Northfarthing. The conversation at the inn had Sam saying something about these "Tree-men," as "big as an elm" being spotted by his cousin.

In The Return of the King Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin to send word if they find the Entwives in the Shire.

Merry

A very nice theory, claudea99. Welcome to the Downs. :)

I think pollination sounds the most comfortable way for the Ents to breed. Or how would an Enting develop inside an Entwife? How would the Entwives give birth to live young? It just doesn't seem to fit their physique.

The problem with your theory is, though, that why would there only be Ent seeds in the Brown lands? Why not in other places where there still were Ents, eg. in the Fangorn forest? For if the Ents were born from seed, surely it didn't matter if it was their mother or father who brought them up.

Now that I've got into full speed... More questions.
Ents look different depending on which tree species they guard, but I've always wondered if they choose their species themselves or are kind of born with it. The Entwives clearly preferred another kinds of trees than the Ents, and eventually both sexes looked different. From which parent did the Entings inherit their looks, or are all born looking the same and differentiate only after choosing their tree species?
And what about sex determination? In mammals there are X and Y chromosomes, but is it the same with Ents? Or do some environmental variables or such affect it?

About the Entwives living near the Shire, I don't think so.

Seeds
 

There are trees where the "male" tree produces a different flower than the "female"... the
female producing the fruit; the male pollen. Ent seeds landing in the fertile fangorn would
sprout, to produce entlings. Those seeds carried afar by the entwives could sprout also, but if
any lasted unsprouted, they may last a very long time is a dry, unforgiving place -- to be awaken
when the brown lands come alive again. As the white tree seed did after centuries of dormancy.

Anyway it is unlikely any entwive did survive, but it it feals good to hope.

I suspect the Entwives are still about, somewhere. There must be at least one Entwife about. On wheather they had X and Y chromosomes, this I doubt, I agree with claudea99 that it the sex determination of an Ent was just as it would be in any plant that has diffrent male and female plants. The real question is whether trees that were both male and female could become ditinct sexes when they were "awakened" or whatever by the Elves.

Now I can imagine an Entish initiation rite... Entings send a long time alone in the forest and find themselves a tree species and, depending on it, also a gender. :D

entseeds
 

I thought I was on to something... but with the minimal of research, it seems that "entseeds" are hardly a new idea..

Is it assumed, then, that the Ents and Entwives were of the plant kingdom? Could they still not have been of the animal kingdom? I guess it is easy to assume they are of the plant kingdom, but this is just a thought that came into my mind. And it would make a difference, then, as to how any offspring are reproduced.

Merry

If they are of either. In the case you want to make such classification in the first place, it is possible that a separate group can be made for them. Something like Fungi - they also used to belong under plants, yet there were some things in which they differed from the plants too much for the scientists to keep them in the same group.

I think there might be something to Aganzir's idea.
It may well be possible that Ents took the shape of the tree that they guarded as for example Quickbeam who is said to have guarded Rowan trees also resembled them.

Due to their many animal-like characteristics I would speculate that the first spirits that became shepherds of the trees belonged to animal kingdom, looked plant-like (probably to blend in with the other trees) and could assume the form of the trees they guarded.
As such I believe breeding would be pretty much like in most other animals.

An interesting quote for this is:

Considering the infromation we get from the books I personally have to go with the second theory.

For more informatin I recommend the quite nicely done essay on Ents by Ardamir.

Before reading the essay I was myself quite sure that there were no more Entwives, though after doing so the idea of some Entwives having managed to escape Sauron's attack seems to me if not likely or probable, then at least possible.

Interesting theory, Might, concerning the shape-changing of Ents. I suppose it's possible, but I would have thought them more, um, concrete and earthy than to go about actually changing their form. Certainly, they bore a superficial resemblance to trees, in certain of their characteristics (quality/quantity of beard, number of fingers, size, color, texture), but the resemblance didn't extend to their physical structure. Ents are closer to trolls than they are to trees, in that their figure is essentially mannish (two arms, two legs, head, face), and I, personally, don't imagine them using quite the kind of magic necessary to change that. Entish "magic" is more, well, natural and down-to-earth. It's like a speeding up of natural processes; the things they do that might be considered "magical" are things that happen anyway, only much, much faster. Shape-changing wouldn't be in their line of work, because it's unnatural.

EDIT: Well, Might, I just read the essay you linked to, and your theory makes a great deal more sense based on hints and suggestions in some of Tolkien's letters. I'm still skeptical, but it's definitely within the realm of possibility. :)

EDIT 2: I'm even less sure of myself now, after reading the part where Treebeard says: "sheep get like shepherds and get like sheep; but it is quicker and closer with Ents." It gives even MORE credence to The Might's theory, darn it. To what extent had you envisioned the Ents taking the shape of trees, Might? Would it be an literal physical change, as in the sprouting of branches and roots?

As this quote

shows they resembled the treeds, they reminded the Hobbits of the trees. Clearly there would be a difference between the Ents and the trees, but possibly this difference would diminish if the Ents grew treeish.

So it seems likely to me that it was due to their special assignment as shepherds and not as normal trees that they looked different, when they abandoned it they blended in with the others.
I know this sounds a bit strange, but as long as you have skin-changers capable of transforming into bears I don't see why Ents wouldn't be capable oftaking the shape of the trees they cared for.
Sounds quite like something Yavanna would think of.

Yes, I suppose so. Though, it does say that the Ents recalled certain trees, which implies a fairly weak level of resemblance.

I always found that to be tragic too, that the Ents, these noble and ancient creatures, were doomed to die out because they cannot find their wives. What makes it worse is that the Ents do not seem to want to look and I think that the Entwives probably didn't want to be found. Maybe they just moved to the Old Forest and slowly became more treeish. Only maintaining the tiniest sparks of life.
But I remember a while back that some guy declared that he had found the Entwives within Tolkiens work and the the author had used a variety of clues to conceal where they were. Whether this was all nonsense I'm not sure but it certainly intrigued me none the less.
Ah, here we are:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=12512

Maybe they just grow like trees. Well, what I mean is they start slightly tree-ish, but as they get older develop into more tree-like beings, depending on which tree they chose to guard.

I can just imagine it: Over time. First a little dark patch, then a spot, then a lump, then a shoot, and after about 20 years of slow growing, a small brach.

edit: A sad thought just came into my mind. Maybe all ents are sufferers of a disease, like this?

What branch of the animal kingdom would Ents belong? It would be interesting to see a family tree of sorts. Perhaps they have roots in both flora and fauna kingdoms. As far as reproduction, I have no theory that would bole anyone over, and I have yet to hear the phrase 'Got wood?' pulled out of the gag trunk.

It is rather interesting that the Legendarium includes two (possibly) extinctions: that of the ents and that of the dwarves. The elves sail west and so that does not count quite as an extinction while the hobbits are said still to be around but in hiding.

So, two extinctions, both apparently brought about by the lack of female members ( ;) ) of the species. Yet in the study of paleontology and biology, extinction is not generally related to gender, but to some sort of disruption in the ecosystem, such as catastrophic volcanoes, extra-terrestrial meteors, gas hydrates--at least at the level of mass extinction.

So was Tolkien getting all hung up on sex or was he saying that it was Eru's will that the dwarves and ents became extinct? Or is extinct too strong a word?

Well, Bêthberry, if they were like amphibians they they could... erm.. change... erm... gender, but I don't think that's really posssible in this case (I was talking about dwarves, but actually, it could be possible with ents)

But why was there a lack of female dwarves?

Ummm...a short mating season?

Actually, I am rather stumped as to how the Dwarves procreated at all, considering Aule created only male dwarves.

Well now this is cause for much futher discussion, although few seem to have taken up the conundrum.

Was Tolkien's comment about the difficulty of distinguishing between dwarven genders one of his mighty niggles, that he never went back and erased the seeming implausability, but instead posited reasons for it?

Did Tolkien ascribe to an all-inclusive meaning of "Father" similar to that once generally accepted of "Men", that as "men" included women "Father" must include 'mother'? (An interpretation famously repudiated and rejected over these last fifty years or so, at least by some.)

Or is this simply another instance where Tolkien did not feel the need to mention any of the females? After all, Tolkien never bothered to give names to Undomiel's daughters. And the family trees do not always name all the female descendents, simply reading "3 daughters". Perhaps Tolkien felt that only the Seven Fathers, as the forebearers, merited mention? After all, he had that prime model of world creation before him, the Bible. Where did Seth find his mate?

From merely an assumptive position, one could say that once Eru granted the Dwarves sentience (as opposed to being Aule's mini-marionettes), then he also allowed a procreative state and thus gender, which could not happen in the form Aule originally created. Thus, perhaps a few of the Seven Dwarven Fathers did indeed become mothers, and why there is such a similarity in features between the two sexes. Perhaps that is where the phrase 'bearding the lilly' comes from.