In the biblical Noah's Ark story, Genesis says the ark was made from gopher wood.
Genesis 6:14 instructs Noah to make the ark from “gopher wood” and to cover it with pitch inside and outside. The phrase is a direct detail in the Hebrew Bible, but the exact identity of the wood is not known with certainty. Because of that uncertainty, many modern translations preserve the expression rather than identifying a specific tree.
Readers sometimes replace “gopher wood” with cypress or another familiar timber. Those alternatives come from translation theories and ancient comparisons, not from an unambiguous identification in Genesis. The text itself supplies the term without explaining its botanical meaning.
The same verse also describes the ark as having compartments and being waterproofed with pitch. These construction details support the story's description of a large, sealed vessel, while leaving the precise species of wood unresolved.