LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 09 - Flotsam and Jetsam

[Aldarion Elf-Friend]

To quote an even small portion of Treebeard's quote:

Many men learned the crafts of the Entwives and honoured them greatly; but we were only a legend to them, a secret in the heart of the forest.

The first thing this makes me wonder is if the entwives were physically different from the ents, and to a degree that they would not even be recognized as the same species.

My reason for wondering is that men honored the entwives greatly, but ents were only a legend. If they look fairly similar, I would have a very easy time believing that the masculine version of what's standing right in front of me could be found in the forests to the south, unless the entwives themselves had come to believe that the ents had passed away.