To investigate bacterial communities between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils of the wild medicinal plant Rumex patientia of Jilin, China, small subunit rRNAs (16S rDNA) from soil metagenome were amplified by polymerase chain reaction using primers specific to the domain bacteria and analysed by cloning and sequencing. The relative proportion of bacterial communities in rhizosphere soils was similar to non-rhizosphere soils in five phylogenetic groups (Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi and Planctomycetes). But there were differences in five other phylogenetic groups (Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Verrucomicrobia and Unclassified bacteria). Over 97.24 % of the sequenced clones were found to be unique to rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils, while 2.76 % were shared by both of them. Our results indicate that there are differences in the composition and proportion of bacterial communities between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils. Furthermore, the unique bacterial clones between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils of the wild medicinal plant R. patientia have obvious differences.