A novel actinomycete, strain WS-26(T), was isolated from beach sand on the coast of Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, and subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic characterization. The organism produced reddish orange-coloured substrate mycelium and white aerial mycelium, both of which fragmented into rod-shaped elements. A neighbour-joining tree, based on 16S rRNA gene sequence studies, revealed that the isolate formed a distinct branch at the base of a cluster that included Nocardia carnea, N. flavorosea, N. pigrifrangens, N. sienata and N. testacea. This branching pattern was also found in a tree constructed using the maximum-likelihood method, but was not supported by the maximum-parsimony method. Levels of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between the isolate and its phylogenetic neighbours ranged from 96.5 to 97.8 %. Chemotaxonomic properties, such as the principal amino acid of peptidoglycan, predominant menaquinone and polar lipids, supported its assignment to the genus Nocardia. On the basis of phenotypic and phylogenetic data, the organism was different from Nocardia species with validly published names. The name Nocardia harenae sp. nov. is proposed, with WS-26(T) (=KCCM 42317(T)=NRRL B-24459(T)) as the type strain.