In Kyoto City, leaves of Sasa veitchii var. hirsuta are widely used for festivals or culinary culture, and the history dates back at least more than 300 years. The long history and large demand brought forth a leaf industry around the habitat of Sasa in rural area, and generated indigenous knowledge on leaf collection that is one of customary practices for local landscape management. Although a preceding research could clarify general outline of the industry such as collection area, concrete information on the collection skill itself was still unclarified. In this research, we conducted a participatory observation and recorded their physical techniques, collection criteria, working speed, and precision of selecting leaves. As a result, we could find that local collectors were selectively picking culms with large current-year leaves that have less aesthetic damages, and after that, they do secondary selection to completely remove small or damaged ones and get leaf bundles of possible largest sizes. Although most of these works were simple, it required proficiency for efficient processing. Comparison with leaf size variation in Sasa community bolstered the observation that the indigenous way of collection is selective. Possibility of regeneration promotion caused by collection activity was also pointed out.
