A psychrotolerant actinomycete, strain YIM6T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from Beijiang in Xinjiang Province, China. Both vegetative and aerial hyphae grew well on various media after 4 weeks. Long spore chains, borne on the aerial mycelium, were straight to flexuous or occasionally Retinaculiaperti and non-motile. The novel isolate grew well at between 8 and 20 degrees C; the lower and upper temperature limits for growth were 0 and 32 degrees C. The cell wall of strain YIM6T contained LL-diaminopimelic acid (A2pm) and traces of meso-A2pm. Whole-cell hydrolysates contained mainly glucose and small amounts of xylose, galactose and arabinose. The predominant menaquinones were MK-9(H6) and MK-9(H8) and phosphatidylethanolamine was the diagnostic phospholipid. The predominant cellular fatty acids were 15:0 anteiso, 16:0 iso and 17:0 cyclo. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that strain YIM6T belongs to the genus Streptomyces. In its morphology, physiological and biochemical characteristics and 16S rDNA sequence, strain YIM6T differed from other members of Streptomyces. Thus, strain YIM6T (= CCTCC 99005T = AS 4.1718T = DSM 41794T) is proposed as the type strain of a novel species, Streptomyces beijiangensis sp. nov.