A bacterial strain designated Tese-5T was isolated from a water convolvulus field in Taiwan and characterized using the polyphasic taxonomic approach. Strain Tese-5T was an aerobic, Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterium and formed bright yellow coloured colonies. Strain Tese-5T grew at 15-35 �XC (optimum, 30 �XC), with 0-1.0 % NaCl (optimum, 0-0.5 %) and at pH 5.5-7 (optimum, pH 6). The major fatty acids (>10 %) of strain Tese-5T were C18 : 1�s7c, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1�s7c and/or C16 : 1�s6c) and C16 : 0. The polar lipid profile comprised phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine and sphingoglycolipid. The major polyamine was spermidine. The major isoprenoid quinone was Q-10. The DNA G+C content was 65.7 mol%. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain Tese-5T belonged to the genus Novosphingobium and showed the highest levels of sequence similarity to Novosphingobium chloroacetimidivorans BUT-14T and Novosphingobium mathurense SM117T (96.3 %). Phenotypic characteristics of the novel strain also differed from those of the closest-related species of the genus Novosphingobium. On the basis of the genotypic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic data, strain Tese-5T represents a novel species in the genus Novosphingobium, for which the name Novosphingobium ipomoeaesp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Tese-5T (=BCRC 80904T=LMG 28838T=KCTC 42656T).