A novel actinomycete, strain 44EHW(T), was isolated from rhizospheric soil under an Elephant ear plant (Colocasia esculenta) in Bangkok, Thailand. Strain 44EHW(T) produced long branching hyphae and abundant aerial mycelia with chains of rod-shaped spores. Whole-cell hydrolysates contained galactose, glucose, arabinose, ribose, mannose and rhamnose as diagnostic sugars. meso-Diaminopimelic acid was the diamino acid and glycine, alanine and glutamic acid were present in the cell-wall peptidoglycan with the acyl type of the peptidoglycan being acetyl. Phospholipids consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylethanolamine with hydroxy fatty acids and diphosphatidylglycerol, as well as other unknown phospholipids; however, no mycolic acids were detected. The predominant menaquinone observed was MK-9(H4) and major fatty acids were iso-C16 : 0 and 2-OH iso-C16 : 0. The G+C content of genomic DNA was 74 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that this isolate was most similar to Actinokineospora enzanensis NBRC 16517(T). However, DNA-DNA hybridization revealed a low relatedness between this isolate and A. enzanensis NBRC 16517(T), indicating that this isolate represented a novel species in the genus Actinokineospora. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, phenotypic characteristics and DNA-DNA hybridization data, we propose that strain 44EHW(T) represents a novel species in the genus Actinokineospora, Actinokineospora bangkokensis. The type strain is 44EHW(T) ( = BCC 53155(T) = NBRC 108932(T)).