The genus Widdringtonia was named after Edward Widdrington, a Royal Navy captain and a conifer botanist of the late 1700s and early 1800s, who published a book on European pines. The species name cedarbergensis means 'of the Cederberg'. There are three species of Widdringtonia, namely W. nodiflora (= W. cupressoides and W. dracomontana), the mountain cedar, W. schwarzii, the Willowmore cedar, and W. cedarbergensis (= W. juniperoides). They are easy to tell apart in the wild as they are geographically separated: W. schwarzii is restricted to Baviaanskloof and the Kouga Mountains in the Willowmore District which is 560 km west of the Cederberg, and W. nodiflora occurs from Table Mountain in Western Cape eastwards and northwards through Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga to Limpopo [Northern Province] and further northwards into tropical Africa. They are not so easy to identify in the Garden, but it is possible: W. nodiflora female cones are smooth, wrinkled or slightly warty, whereas the other two are conspicuously rough and warty. W. schwarzii seed has a conspicuous wing, whereas that of W. cedarbergensis is smaller. W. nodiflora is a variable species that extends into tropical Africa. The Mlanje cedar of Malawi, W. whytei, is considered to be a variant of W. nodiflora.

Widdringtonias are members of the cypress family, which is very poorly represented in South Africa. This is the only genus out of 16 in the whole family that occurs in South Africa. Its fragmented distribution has given rise to the theory that they are the last remnants of a vegetation that once, in some remote period, covered a far larger and more connected area. Fossil wood has been found near Knysna.

In living memory, the Cederberg area has been used either for grazing, which also entailed patch burning, or the forests were felled and the timber sold by local inhabitants. Although noted during the early 1800s that the trees would soon be depleted if harvesting continued unchecked, it was only in 1876 that a ranger was appointed to exercise control, and yet over-exploitation continued. In 1897 part of the Cederberg was declared a demarcated forest, and plantations of fast-growing trees were planted to prevent harvesting of the cedars. Plantations of the cedars were established at higher altitudes, but this project was abandoned by 1916 as their growth was too slow to be commercially viable. Today the Cederberg enjoys maximum protection, and harvesting of the cedars has been banned for the last 100 years.  However, the fact that the natural population was so reduced, together with the threat of too-frequent fires, as well as an apparent increase in seed predation, all rendered its recovery by natural regeneration nearly impossible.

In 1987 approximately 5 250 ha was set aside in the ca 72 000 ha Cederberg Wilderness Area as a Cedar Reserve, with two main objectives: 1) to prevent deaths of adult trees by implementing a low intensity burning programme, and 2) to increase the number of juvenile plants by re-introducing nursery-grown seedlings. Thousands of seedlings were planted every year, but this programme unfortunately came to a halt in 2000. The Botanical Society was instrumental in creating the Cederberg Interest Group in 2001 and, with funds from Fauna and Flora International, a new cedar nursery was established and the planting programme continued. This programme is a partnership between the Botanical Society of South Africa, the Western CapeNature Conservation Board, and the local community. 

See the weblinks below for more information on the Cederberg Wilderness Area and this project.