If it doesn't have an official place on the taxonomic rank as subspecies, it's not a subspecies.
Criteria for subspecies:
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1. Members of the group are reliably distinguishable from members of other groups. The distinction can be made in any of a wide number of ways, such as: differently shaped leaves, a different number of primary wing feathers, a particular ritual breeding behaviour, relative size of certain bones, different DNA sequences, and so on. There is no set minimum 'amount of difference': the only criterion is that the difference be reliably discernible. In practice, however, very small differences tend to be ignored.
2. The flow of genetic material between the group and other groups is small and sometimes can be expected to remain so because even if the two groups were to be placed together they would not interbreed to any great extent.
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Subspecies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There's nothing pedantic about that. It's quite clear.