This table provides a modern reference library of mid-infrared absorbance spectra of charcoal produced experimentally from plant tissues of taxa representative of the vegetation around Purghagoolah (Lake Elusive), Croajingolong National Park, southeastern Australia. Woody and herbaceous material from living plants was charred in a muffle furnace at controlled maximum temperatures (200, 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700 °C), and transmission FTIR spectra were acquired on a Nicolet iN10 MX infrared microscope using OMNIC Picta software. Each row is one reference spectrum, labelled by charring temperature and plant taxon, with absorbance reported at each wavenumber from 951 to 3499 cm-1. The library of 3,180 spectra was used as the analogue training set to estimate the pyrolysis temperature of the sedimentary charcoal fragments (provided separately). Absorbance values are rounded to six decimal places.