A Gram-stain-positive, motile and rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain LZ2T, was isolated from a sample of orchard soil from Laizhou city, Shandong province, PR China. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain LZ2T was closely related to members of the genus Sporosarcina, sharing highest levels of sequence similarity with Sporosarcina pasteurii NCIMB 8841T (98.8 %), Sporosarcina soli I80T (95.9 %). The value for the DNA-DNA relatedness between strain LZ2T and Sporosarcina pasteurii NCIMB 8841T was 39.8±1.7 %. Growth occurred at 10-44 °C (optimum, 30-35 °C), pH 5.0-11.0 (optimum pH 9.0-10.0); NaCl concentrations of up to 7.0 % (w/v) were tolerated. The dominant respiratory quinone was MK-7 and the G+C content was 39.2 mol%. The major fatty acids were anteiso-C15 : 0 and iso-C15 : 0. The major polar lipids of strain LZ2T were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and an unidentified phospholipid. Based on phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics, and phylogenetic data strain LZ2T represents a novel species of the genus Sporosarcina, for which the name Sporosarcina terrae sp. nov. (type strain LZ2T=KACC 18822T=MCCC 1K03174T) is proposed.