Several bacterial strains were isolated from root nodules of Phaseolus vulgaris plants grown in a soil from Portugal. The strains were Gram-negative, aerobic, curved rod-shaped and motile. The isolates were catalase- and oxidase-positive. The TP-RAPD (two-primer randomly amplified polymorphic DNA) patterns of all strains were identical, suggesting that they belong to the same species. The complete 16S rDNA sequence of a representative strain was obtained and phylogenetic analysis based on the neighbour-joining method indicated that this bacterium belongs to the beta-Proteobacteria and that the closest related genus is Herbaspirillum. The DNA G+C content ranged from 57.9 to 61.9 mol%. Growth was observed with many different carbohydrates and organic acids including caprate, malate, citrate and phenylacetate. No growth was observed with maltose, meso-inositol, meso-erythritol or adipate as sole carbon source. According to the phenotypic and genotypic data obtained in this work, the bacterium represents a novel species of the genus Herbaspirillum, and the name Herbaspirillum lusitanum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is P6-12(T) (=LMG 21710(T)=CECT 5661(T)).