Abstract: Scallion is a type of condiment and original material of food in the Chinese catering culture, which had a long history in the developing process of Chinese traditional culture. However, when did scallion come into human life? How many kinds of scallion were there in the past? They are unknown up till now. In this study, historical records of ‘scallion’ were traced from the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty which was about 2000 years ago. The methods of plant taxonomy and comparative morphology were applied to the research, which resulted in 24 names related to ‘scallion’, and 21 of them were identified with a distinct scientific name. The study was the first such kind of case study on the original plants of scallion and its corresponding plants recorded in the Chinese historical literatures. The results showed that the homology of medicine and food in scallion was clearly acknowledged in the Tang Dynasty about 1500 years ago. At the same time, the relationship between scallion and eight fasting vegetative food was clarified from the perspective of plant science.