A Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain DCY01(T), was isolated from soil from a ginseng field in South Korea and was characterized in order to determine its taxonomic position. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain DCY01(T) belonged to the Gammaproteobacteria and was most closely related to Stenotrophomonas koreensis KCTC 12211(T) (98.4 % similarity), Stenotrophomonas humi R-32729(T) (97.2 %), Stenotrophomonas terrae R-32768 (97.1 %), Stenotrophomonas maltophilia DSM 50170(T) (96.9 %) and Stenotrophomonas nitritireducens DSM 12575(T) (96.8 %). Chemotaxonomic analyses revealed that strain DCY01(T) possessed a quinone system with Q-8 as the predominant compound, and iso-C(15 : 0) (28.2 %), C(16 : 0) 10-methyl (13.2 %), iso-C(15 : 1) F (10.8 %) and C(15 : 0) (7.5 %) as major fatty acids, corroborating assignment of strain DCY01(T) to the genus Stenotrophomonas. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. The results of DNA-DNA hybridization and physiological and biochemical tests clearly demonstrated that strain DCY01(T) represents a species distinct from recognized Stenotrophomonas species. Based on these data, DCY01(T) (=KCTC 12539(T)=NBRC 101154(T)) should be classified as the type strain of a novel species of the genus Stenotrophomonas, for which the name Stenotrophomonas ginsengisoli sp. nov. is proposed.