A Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterial strain, named SJ-16T, was isolated from desert soil collected in Inner Mongolia, northern PR China. Strain SJ-16T grew at pH 6.0–11.0 (optimum, pH 8.0–9.0), 4–40 °C (optimum, 30–35 °C) and in the presence of 0–8 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0–2 %). The strain was negative for catalase and positive for oxidase. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain SJ-16T clustered with
Luteimonas chenhongjianii
100111T and
Luteimonas terrae
THG-MD21T, and had 98.8, 98.6, 98.3 and <97.9 % of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to strains
L. chenhongjianii
100111T,
L. terrae
THG-MD21T,
L. aestuarii
B9T and all other type strains of the genus
Luteimonas
, respectively. The major cellular fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1
ω7c and/or C16 : 1
ω6c) and summed feature 9 (C16 : 0 10-methyl and/or iso-C17 : 1
ω9c). Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine were the major polar lipids, and ubiquinone-8 was the only respiratory quinone. The genomic DNA G+C content was 69.3 mol%. The digital DNA–DNA hybridization and average nucleotide identity values of strain SJ-16T to
L. chenhongjianii
100111T,
L. terrae
THG-MD21T,
L. rhizosphaerae
4-12T and
L. aestuarii
B9T were 36.9, 37.5, 24.0 and 21.1 %, and 80.9, 80.6, 80.7 and 76.3 %, respectively. Based on phenotypic, physiological and phylogenetic results, strain SJ-16T represents a novel species of the genus
Luteimonas
, for which the name Luteimonas deserti is proposed. The type strain is SJ-16T (=CGMCC 1.17694T=KCTC 82207T).