A polyphasic study was designed to establish the taxonomic status of a Streptomyces strain isolated from soil from the QinLing Mountains, Shaanxi Province, China, and found to be the source of known and new specialized metabolites. Strain MBT76 T was found to have chemotaxonomic, cultural and morphological properties consistent with its classification in the genus Streptomyces . The strain formed a distinct branch in the Streptomyces 16S rRNA gene tree and was closely related to the type strains of Streptomyces hiroshimensis and Streptomyces mobaraerensis . Multi-locus sequence analyses based on five conserved house-keeping gene alleles showed that strain MBT76 T is closely related to the type strain of S. hiroshimensis , as was the case in analysis of a family of conserved proteins. The organism was also distinguished from S. hiroshimensis using cultural and phenotypic features. Average nucleotide identity and digital DNA–DNA hybridization values between the genomes of strain MBT76 T and S. hiroshimensis DSM 40037 T were 88.96 and 28.4±2.3%, respectively, which is in line with their assignment to different species. On the basis of this wealth of data it is proposed that strain MBT76 T (=DSM 106196 T =NCCB 100637 T ), be classified as a new species, Streptomyces roseifaciens sp. nov.