Can anyone ID this pine?

At least I'm reasonably sure it's a pine... It was growing in Loja, which is a 2100 m elevation city in the semidesert. The overall habit of the tree was rounded, rather than conical, and I didn't see any cones.

It was in the central square of the city, which means it's somewhere around 250 to 300 years old - the city has plaques in the square stating that none of the trees have been replaced since about the 1700s. The trunk was so big around that three of us couldn't circle it.

 

Casuarina perhaps? Any chance of a closeup of the leaves(needles)?

HTH
Chris

 

Nope. I'm about 500 klicks away right now. I think there may be similar ones growing up here in Quito; if so I'll take some closeups. I don't think it was a Casuarina, though - the needles were in groups of 3 to 5, and they weren't segmented the way the Casuarina are.

 

Looks in your picture like it's definitely something of that ilk and not a pine.

 

Yep, a species of Casuarina, most likely Casuarina equisetifolia.

 

I didn't realise they could get that old....

 

That one is a decent size, though far from the largest Casuarina I've seen