Receptaculites was probably a benthic marine calcareous alga of the Order Dasycladales

Dasycladales

In taxonomy, the Dasycladales is an order of large unicellular green algae in the class Ulvophyceae. It contains two families, the Dasycladaceae and the Polyphysaceae....

 that lived from the Early Ordovician

Ordovician

The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...

 through the Permian

Permian

The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

. It has a double spiral radiating pattern of rhombus

Rhombus

In Euclidean geometry, a rhombus or rhomb is a convex quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. The rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in playing cards, or a lozenge, though the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° angle.Every...

-shaped plates supported by spindle-like objects called meroms. Fossils can usually be identified by the intersecting patterns of clockwise and counterclockwise rows of plates or stalk spaces.