Search of the Ents

In the long ages before the War of the Last Alliance, the Ents wandered the forests of Middle-earth, while the Entwives tended their gardens in the lands beyond Anduin. During the War, the Entwives' gardens were withered by Sauron, turning them into the desolate Brown Lands, and when the Ents came in search of their Entwives they found nothing but an empty and barren land. In the early years of the Third Age, the Ents would wander far and wide, calling the names of the lost Entwives and searching for them across Middle-earth.

As time passed the searchers grew fewer and wandered less often, and by the close of the Third Age the Search of the Ents was little more than a forlorn memory, and a topic of song for the Elves. Still at times the Ents would recite the names of their lost Entwives, but they no longer travelled the lands in search of them.

The Search of the Ents had no apparent hope of success, at least according to Tolkien's own comments. Though he does not seem to have reached a settled opinion on the matter, he does say, 'I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429 - 3441)...' (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No. 144, dated 1954). He does, however, concede the possibility that they may have fled into the East, so a final reunion between the Ents and the Entwives was not entirely impossible.