A Gram-positive aerobic rod-shaped non-motile bacterium designated A23(T) was isolated from bamboo extract that had been used to remove odor and was characterized to determine its taxonomic position. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain A23(T) belongs to the phylum Actinobacteria. The highest degree of sequence similarities was determined to be with Leucobacter salsicius M1-8(T) (96.7%), Leucobacter exalbidus K-540B(T) (96.4%), Leucobacter chromiireducens subsp. chromiireducens L-1(T) (96.4%), Leucobacter komagatae IFO 15245(T) (96.4%) and Leucobacter aerolatus Sj10(T) (96.4%). Chemotaxonomic data revealed that strain A23(T) possesses menaquinone MK11, and its cell wall peptidoglycan contained 2,4-diaminobutyric acid, alanine, glycine, glutamic acid and γ-aminobutyric acid. The polar lipid profile of strain A23(T) contained diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and an unknown glycolipid. The predominant fatty acids were iso-C(16:0) (31.5%), anteiso-C(15:0) (43.2%) and anteiso-C(17:0) (13.9%), all of which corroborated the assignment of the strain to the genus Leucobacter. Based on these data, A23(T) (=KEMC 551-022(T) = JCM 17538(T)) should be classified as the type strain for a novel Leucobacter species, for which the name Leucobacter margaritiformis sp. nov. is proposed.