An actinomycete, strain D34T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from the rhizosphere of Stipa grandis at Yunwu Mountain in Ningxia, north-west China. Strain D34T showed highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Saccharothrix espanaensis DSM 44229T (99.0 %), Saccharothrix texasensis NRRL B-16107T (98.7 %) and Saccharothrix variisporea NRRL B-16296T (98.6 %). The strain contained meso-diaminopimelic acid, alanine, glycine and glutamic acid as major cell-wall amino acids. Mannose, rhamnose and galactose were the characteristic whole-cell sugars. The fatty acid profile consisted predominantly of iso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, iso-C16 : 1, C17 : 1ω6c, anteiso-C17 : 0 and anteiso-C15 : 0. The phospholipid profile included phosphatidylethanolamine (typical of phospholipid pattern type II). Furthermore, a combination of some physiological and biochemical properties and low DNA-DNA relatedness values indicated that strain D34T was differentiated from members of closely related species. On the basis of these phenotypic, genotypic and chemotaxonomic data, strain D34T represents a novel species of the genus Saccharothrix, for which the name Saccharothrix stipae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is D34T ( = JCM 30560T = ACCC19714T).